To Care for Him
by ImJessieTR
Summary: Diamondshipping, haleshipping, eldershipping, and expertshipping. Delia must struggle to define a loving relationship. Violence, innuendos. Breaking up is hard to do...
1. The Restaurant

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 1: The Restaurant  
_Author's Note: Anime-based. There will be three main acts: diamondshipping (Delia/Giovanni), haleshipping (Delia/Spencer Hale), and eldershipping (Delia/S. Oak). Delia wants the perfect family, but is that possible? Rated PG-13 for innuendos and violence. Also, I don't own Pokemon, but Nintendo et al. do._

Delia pedaled as fast as her teenage athletic feet could pedal, over rocks and branches and ditches, feverishly trying to get to the restaurant in Viridian City before nine o'clock that Sunday morning. Her mach bike, an aluminum custom collapsible bike in red and black stripes, could barely withstand the barrage of obstacles she deliberately ignored, but that was no matter. She would get there.

Her parents were farmers, sharecropping on a vast farm owned by the reputable Oak family. They grew a multitude of vegetables and then sold a portion of them to the Viridian Café for extra money. They worked long hours in the sun and, despite thirty-four-year-old Samuel Oak's expert advice and help, they continued to be too exhausted to do anything around the house, even to sell their own produce. So it was that Delia was "volunteered" for the job. She had to clean the small house while her parents were away and then cook supper that night and in the morning, first thing, she had to deliver the produce to the restaurant so the cooks could prepare the dishes before lunch.

Like any girl of sixteen, Delia just wanted to get married and get away from her family before their rules drove her insane. They never asked her if _she_ wanted to go somewhere or do something -- it was always about getting the house cleaned and delivering the produce. As the trees and the bushes swept past her, she found herself daydreaming of what the perfect man would be like….

_Delia wore a Marilyn Monroe white dress with cream-colored sandals, the kind that used straps that wrapped around the ankles to keep them on. She stood forlornly on the street corner of some bustling metropolis, her normally tied-up brown hair loosely curling around her face. She was so beautiful, but no man would have her. She was destined to be alone, abandoned by friends and family alike because she had nothing to offer besides her looks, and they were fading with every passing year._

A gentle shower began, moistening her hair and dress, causing her to shiver. The world was dull and gray except for a few neon signs here and there above her head. Just as she was about to resign herself to pneumonia, with a little melodramatic coughing for effect, she realized the rain had suddenly stopped. She looked up and saw a giant black umbrella shielding her from the intensifying downpour. A young man with chiseled good looks and mystifying cologne and dark black hair smiled warmly at her. He dried her face with a small handkerchief, laughing gently.

"You look as though the world has thrown you away," he told her, smiling.

She nodded.

He took off his leather jacket and wrapped it around her, revealing a tight blue sports shirt of spandex and dark blue running pants. As she felt the heat from his body transfer to hers, she smiled back and gazed lovingly into his eyes. Suddenly, she glanced back at the cold wet concrete below her. "I'm sorry," she said, "but you have the wrong person. I'm not meant to be loved by anyone. I have no skills and no money and I don't even have my own umbrella -- how sad is that? Surely you want some other girl who'd make you happy."

He laughed and pecked her on the cheek, before nuzzling her behind her ear. "All I did was walk to this street corner, prepared for nothing else but a long day of paperwork at my office, yet the moment I saw you I knew there was no Goddess in Heaven for She was standing right there on the corner."

Delia smiled reluctantly and nuzzled back. "Can it be true? Have you come to rescue me from my wretched life?"

The young man brushed against her ear with his hand, caressing her tenderly. "I shall resolve this very second to walk you back to Heaven where someone of your stature truly belongs. For this impermanent earth can do you no justice -- only in my arms shall you find everlasting paradise forever and ever."

She brought her lips up to his -- God, he smelled like the spring mountain air….

Her bike jerked out behind her and she fell face first in some moss deep in the Viridian Forest. She quickly sprang up and tried to retrieve her bike, but found it being enveloped in a silky material, which was spurting out of the mouthpieces of very angry weedles, yellow larvae that reached halfway up to her knees when they reared up, with a sharp poisonous horn on its head. She had unknowingly raced across a section of forest filled with weedle eggs and the insect pokemon were quite upset with her lack of empathy.

She started to kick away the strings of silk angrily, swearing at the weedle, demanding that they stop so she could get to the restaurant in time. They responded simply by engulfing her in the same sticky material. She growled in frustration, as she knew it must be fifteen til nine already. As her legs and torso were being wrapped like a Christmas present, several baseball-sized rocks came flying out of the air and struck each weedle with amazing precision. She glanced around and spotted a small geodude, really just a stone head with muscular arms jetting out where its ears would be, flinging rocks at the larvae pokemon. As grateful as she was to be rescued, by human or pokemon it did not matter, she couldn't help but wonder how a geodude got to be in the Viridian Forest, for they typically preferred rocky environs. She struggled to get the silky trap off her body, finally succeeding a few minutes later, as the geodude succeeded in driving away the last of the weedle.

The geodude bounced over to her and asked inquisitively, "Geodude? Geo, geo, dude?"

Delia sighed and nodded. "I'm fine, thanks. I could have taken them on, you know."

"Is that so?" a male voice asked from behind her. Delia whipped around to see a young adult male leaning against a nearby tree, smiling smugly. "From where I stood, you were about to need a machete just to get that stuff off had my geodude and I not arrived."

Delia brushed what silk threads were left off and grunted. "Thanks for your help, but I'm not a damsel in distress."

The man shook his head. "No, you were a supplier in distress. My mother expects timely deliveries and yet you continue to defy common sense by entering this forest without your own pokemon. Really, I get tired sometimes of having to watch you trap yourself in foolish scenarios."

Delia lifted up her bike and inspected her produce to see if any had been damaged. Fortunately, they were alright. She shot the man an irritated glance. "I don't care if your mother owns the restaurant or not -- I'm not late and I don't need rescuing. Now back off or I will be late!"

The man checked his black sports watch with red lettering, which didn't seem to match his light yellow tank top and blue jean shorts and beige hiking boots. It only seemed to accentuate his dark brown hair, so dark it could be black, combed neatly even though most trainers who came through Viridian Forest looked like they had been in a wind tunnel. They would also bear the dusty appearance of someone who ran up against pokemon knowing sleep powder and stun spore and such, yet this trainer was immaculate. He chuckled as he checked the time. "It's 8:55. The 'shortcut' you're taking will ensnare you for a further fifteen minutes. Really, was using the trail that much more terrible?"

Delia shook her head and swore under her breath, stomping the ground with her feet in frustration. Finally, she ripped off the crate of produce from the back of her bike and thrust it into his arms. He stumbled back from sheer surprise. "Here," she ordered. "If I deliver them to you then I'm not late because you're the owner's son. If you have any trouble, I'll be back at my house, putting ointment on all these scrapes," she said, pointing to half a dozen red lines crisscrossing her arms. There were twigs and moss hanging from every inch of her red t-shirt and black riding shorts and she could feel a few pebbles in her sneakers. Today was a rotten day and she was in no mood to bow before her family's all-powerful boss, or her son.

The early-twenties-something man snorted his disapproval. "Don't expect to get paid since _I'm_ the one delivering _your_ produce."

Delia smiled as she got on her bike and began to pedal past him, despite her aching muscles. "Oh no, they're _your_ produce now -- better get a move on or Mommy's gonna ground ya!" She laughed as she rode away, finally free of such an inconvenient chore.


	2. Business Plan

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 2: Business Plan  
_Author's Note: This is going to be a long story… Just a warning. I want to ensure that each shipping phase is well-developed, so this could conceivably go for more than 30 chapters, although I don't know how long it's going to be just yet. It could be shorter, but only if I can say what needs to be said. It will be the last pokemon story I do for a while, because I want to do an original fic next, so I want to put a lot of effort into this one._

Delia was busy cleaning the dishes after breakfast the next morning. There hadn't been a lot of business at the restaurant since the Pokemon Elites was on their annual trek throughout the Kanto region, so hardly any trainers passed through Viridian around this time of the year. However, Delia cared less about the success of the restaurant and more about the damage to her bike, which had two flats from thorns she had carelessly run over. Her parents were already furious about her dumping their hard-earned paycheck in the arms of their boss's son yesterday morning. They accused her of being selfish and arrogant -- always thinking only of herself and her deluded notions of getting picked up by a knight in shining armor.

_One could hear the parents' voices down the street. "Have you no sense of responsibility?" her father demanded. "We have the good sense to get to work on time; what's the matter with you -- or do you still think you're too good for a paycheck?"_

Delia sulked on the couch in the living room. It wasn't a very large house. It had five small rooms total: two bedrooms, a kitchen/living room combo, a bathroom, and a small office for crafts and the produce packaging equipment. Delia felt as though she were trapped in a poke ball sometimes, the house focusing solely on her parents and she was just the afterthought. "I don't know why everyone's getting so ticked off at me -- I delivered, didn't I?"

"You dropped the produce in her son's arms and left!" her mother retorted angrily. "Did you think they were just going to mail you the check? We get paid in cash, you know!"

Delia glared at her parents and stomped her foot on the floor. "Why does he keep following me in the forest, then?" she bellowed. "If he's good enough to go all over the forest, then HE'S the one who should come pick up the supplies! He keeps bragging about how short a trip it is between Pallet and Viridian -- let HIM focus on something other than training that God-forsaken geodude of his!"

"It's not our place to tell our employer how to raise her kid!" the father barked. "She's maybe a few years older than Sam Oak, but her family is her business, not ours."

"Well it's not my fault the weedle sprayed my bike and crashed me," Delia replied, grumbling. "I was making good time 'til then."

A knock on the door surprised her. Her parents should almost be at the farm by now, so it couldn't be them, unless they forgot something. She grumbled to herself. Maybe they came up with a new chore for her since she didn't have to go to Viridian that morning. As she opened the door, her parents stood facing her, as well as the boss's son. They had apparently been yelling at each other, given their flushed faces and scratchy voices.

"This is just what we need," the father complained bitterly yet coarsely as he entered the house. He went straight for his bedroom and slammed the door shut.

Her mother, in contrast, silently wept as she headed for the kitchen. Delia could hear her mumble something about 'her lazy daughter', but she couldn't quite make it out.

Finally, the boss's son glared at her from just outside the doorway. He was fuming, but at least his face's redness was fading. Still, he was immaculate in his business-casual attire of black polo shirt and khakis. She looked at him, half-accusing, half-questioning. "I'll tell you outside," he said abruptly. Dragging her out of the house, they walked around to the back, where a small plot of bare earth was beginning to be tilled for a private garden. He pushed her against the wall and pressed his lips deeply against hers. Initially startled, Delia returned the gesture. When he finally pulled away, he sighed and looked wistfully at the bare earth. "Oak is re-purposing his land," he told her. He glanced in the direction of the Oak family abode. "He's turning it into a pokemon ranch for research."

Delia gulped. "But, what about the people who work there? All the farmers? How," she added reluctantly, "is your mom going to handle this?"

"She's furious," he noted with a small grin. "Nothing … legally … can be done about it, though. He has the right to do with his land what he pleases. Still, his timing is rather unfortunate and I won't even mention the words my mother used to describe his new concept."

"So, how's the Café supposed to get its food, Sakaki?" Delia asked innocently. Despite her intense dislike of delivering goods all the way to Viridian, she couldn't bear the thought her dark knight would go penniless.

He shrugged. "We may have to re-purpose too, I guess," he said. He glanced at her as though he was a beaten growlithe puppy. "And don't call me that, Delia. In my training I find I prefer 'Giovanni' -- it sounds much more romantic, don't you agree?"

She giggled. "If you like gangster movies, sure."

He laughed. "That does have something to do with it, after all. Novices aren't likely to waste my time challenging me if I have the aura of an unreachable godfather." He continued to smile. "All I need is some cheap cotton balls and jowl lines and I'll be a Pokemon Master in no time … I'll set a new record!"

She approached him and rubbed his chest with her hands tenderly. "I just wish we could journey together, like some pokemon trainers do -- see the world, catch rare pokemon, -- be oblivious to the cares of the rest of the world."

He stroked her long brown hair. His voice was tender and hopeful. "I'm trying to get away from her, Delia, just like you want to leave your parents. I train my team very intensely in a small gym I built in the Café basement. I have to find _some_ way to train them since Mother demands my constant presence at home. As soon as some of my pokemon evolve, I'll take them and challenge the big shots around Kanto."

Her eyes grew wide. "You built a gym! Awesome! Will you let me see?"

He chuckled. "After the mess with the delivery yesterday? Mother isn't exactly happy with you right now." He paused, as though deep in thought. "Sure. In fact, a … um … delivery just came in which you would definitely want to see." He wrapped his arm around her and led her to his motorcycle standing on the front lawn. He stared off into the horizon, making sweeping gestures with his free hand. "Together, Delia, we'll have the whole world at our fingertips. Nothing will stand in our way. We'll rise above the commoners we suffer from and extend our reach to the heavens themselves."

Giovanni's motorcycle rode smoothly through the Viridian Forest. It was amazing how fast the time streamed by when going about 70. Yet, even though Giovanni took 'shortcuts' as well, he didn't suffer from his decisions as much as Delia usually did. That was why Delia loved him so much -- he seemed to be untouchable. He could probably be tossed off the cliffs just south of Pallet and not get a mark. He always seemed to be in control of everything: his training, his relationships, his goals. It seemed as though he planned decades ahead of the present. And yet, he was one of the most spontaneous people she had ever met. He would just shower her in the Viridian Forest with flower petals from oddish and gloom, two plant pokemon that grew more colorful with each evolution.

When they finally entered the heavily-reinforced door to the basement, Delia's eyes appeared ready to burst out of her head. She was breathless: a large room with a fifteen-foot-high ceiling, walls painted in earth tones, and areas devoted to training specific types of pokemon, such as a grassy plot or a water tank. There were a few training machines here and there, with more being assembled by Giovanni's co-workers. He pointed out a small white pokemon, with a green cap on its head and a red crest of some sort on the cap. It looked like a doll. It was teleporting madly all around the gym, its arrivals timed by several onlookers. Some were cheering as the pokemon teleported faster and faster until it seemed to be everywhere at once. Finally, nearly exhausted, it landed in front of Delia and panted, although from its facial expression it was pleased with its performance.

Delia squealed with delight and tugged Giovanni's shirt impatiently. He grinned. "It's called a Ralts, I believe. I know you share my affinity for psychic pokemon, so when we," he cleared his throat, "came upon this non-native species and discovered what it was, I instantly thought of you."

She gave him a dirty look. "Are you saying I'm a tomboy or something?"

He laughed. "You know how, no matter what gender an abra you get, it always ends up with those hyper-masculine mustache whiskers?" She nodded. "Well, with this one, from what we've been told, it evolves into a graceful, feminine psychic dancer known to the region of Hoenn. So, I was thinking, if I'm going to be including an abra in my party, it would seem most appropriate to give you this pokemon." The ralts looked up at Delia with big starry eyes.

Delia was overwhelmed with emotion. Here was a rare pokemon from another region, and her knight in shining armor was giving it to _her_! Her heart raced with excitement. She immediately embraced it, her grin threatening to rip apart her face with its size. "I can't believe it! My own pokemon! And a psychic one, too! I can't tell you how happy you've made me!"

He tried to pry her arms apart. "You can show me by not killing it with your passionate embrace," he said teasingly.

She loosened her grip and stared into Giovanni's eyes. "You're training an abra? Why? All they seem to do is teleport?" She paused, reflecting on her gift. "Is that all this one does, too? Are you giving me a bum gift?"

He shook his head. "It learns more than just teleport, Delia. You know that. I intend to breed these two to see how high I can get the offspring's stats. I prefer ground pokemon on my standard team, but I need powerful fallbacks since any grass or water pokemon trainer can devastate what I've got."

Breeding? His pokemon and her pokemon? Eek, she thought, how romantic! She knew now she had made the right choice when she fell madly in love with him….


	3. A Mother's Story

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 3: A Mother's Story  
Giovanni lay back against a large beanbag on the gym floor as his girlfriend played ping-pong with her new pokemon, a ralts. He once met a gifted family in Saffron, a family devoted to the psychic arts, and he was spellbound. To be able to exercise one's will to affect the environment directly seemed like a miracle, if he believed in such things. Having noticed that there were both human and pokemon psychics, he had decided that the best way to exercise his will was to breed or even create a powerful psychic, so that the genes involved in its nature could ultimately be bestowed upon him.

Exercising his will had become paramount to Giovanni. His mother was developing a covert underground black market and was suppressing his desire to rise through the ranks of this new organization. No matter what he wanted to do, she stood in his way like a giant Snorlax, the rotund giant of a beast best known for its unlimited appetite.

That was why he hadn't told her yet about his new gym in the basement. If she knew, she'd try to get involved -- no, he thought angrily as he crushed a water bottle in his hand -- she'd take over the operation completely, leaving him with nothing, not even credit. Worse, she might confiscate the rare pokemon he had taken upon himself to collect.

Still, the hope of a powerful immortal existence meant nothing if his mother got involved. He also knew that immortality may not be feasible, so he decided that offspring could give him the immortality he sought. And that was why he felt attracted to Delia. Sure, she was a klutz … but she had a resolve, a strength of will, that he loved. She wasn't afraid of him or his mother, although she had no idea what his family was up to, yet he found he couldn't tear himself away. She was necessary -- to gain the immortality he sought. So, despite her immature whining and her klutziness and her naïve thoughtlessness, he wanted her to be his. He was willing to put aside all appearances of superiority if it meant she would be helplessly devoted to him and provide for him access to immortality.

Suddenly, everyone stood perfectly still, their mouths agape. Not a sound could be heard throughout the entire gym. All eyes seemed to be trained on the door behind Giovanni, so he turned and looked and cursed to himself.

In the doorway stood a sleek woman with long black hair, her bright red business suit standing out among all the earth tones of the room. She was furious only initially, as her dark eyes suddenly widened with the many possibilities swirling through her head. It was as Giovanni feared.

She gasped and clasped her hands together as if she were cooing over a newborn child. "I can't believe it!" she uttered. "All this time I thought my boy was just lazy -- but I see now that he's just shy!" She hurried to every machine throughout the room and ended up towering over the reclining son of hers. "So, you've been developing new training equipment, eh? This stuff could make us --"

"A-HEM!" Giovanni coughed, glancing in Delia's direction.

Giovanni's mother whipped around and saw the young girl, gawking at the boss's sudden appearance, and smiled. "It could make us millions, boy. Don't you see? People will pay big bucks for pokemon training equipment! File a few patents, slap our logos on them and rake in the big money!" She nodded toward Delia. "And I take it you'll be handling our deliveries to pokemon keepers everywhere? It's quite a big jump from delivering lettuce and tomatoes, don't you agree?" She glanced back at her son. "Don't you think she'd be of more use to us as a long-term delivery girl? She could see the world, meet new people -- why, the intrinsic rewards alone make me want to dance!"

"Please, don't," Giovanni muttered in an embarrassed tone. "Besides, I've already asked her to be my _partner_."

His mother stared at him in disbelief. She frowned, then turned back to look Delia right square in the eyes. "Let me tell you a little tale of 'partnerships', dear," she said bitterly:

_"I was a young girl, maybe nine or ten. I was on the playground, the large sandy patch behind the old day school. We were playing baseball and I was the team captain. It was the girls against the boys. On the other team was this quiet little boy with brown hair who seemed to be thinking far away instead of right then when it was most important to his team. He had only recently been back home after getting lost while traveling. Ditsy little thing, I tell you. In any case, he was the second-baseman, as leadership was not his cup of tea. His captain had ordered him to catch the ball flying from the bat of one my players, but he just stood there like a Slowpoke, oblivious to the world. Well, we got a couple home runs out of that play and his captain was furious. He, the captain, dear, hurled the baseball at me, screaming that I had made fools of the boys. Even though I got hit in the shoulder, I confidently replied that he was correct, but we didn't need to make fools of the boys because they were doing a great job of that themselves. However, my shoulder really started to sting, and it snapped something in that quiet little boy. He found a rock and threw it at his captain, forbidding him to hurt a girl like that again. He took over as captain, but the captain didn't like it, so they fought. The cute little quiet boy actually won, and the captain sulked and walked off the playground. We were whipped within an inning. After the game, I walked over to the boy and slapped him, telling him I didn't need help. He told me I was stupid, that a good leader wasn't afraid to accept help when he or she needed it. Naturally, being around the age when young children go off on pokemon journeys, I asked him if he had any yet. He said he already raised a young charmander into a charmeleon -- you know the ones, dear, the mid-sized red-orange lizards with flames coming out their tails and a big crest coming out the back of the head. It was love, dear. To have a second-stage pokemon so early in his career -- why nothing on this earth could prepare me for his talent. I looked up to him for so many years…."_

"Is there a point to this romantic nonsense?" her son wondered aloud in an irritated voice.

His mother scoffed. "Only that with time everything started to fall apart. He didn't know how to appreciate his talents and I surely appreciated mine, so our relationship fell flat. I just wanted to warn your new help about the dangers of professional relationships."

"Maybe you two could have been more supportive," Delia offered in a timid voice.

Giovanni's mother's feathers were obviously ruffled. "I am no one's maid, girl," she retorted snobbishly. "Men have to clean up after themselves and support themselves. Their purpose in life is to support me and cater to my every whim!" She began to walk out the door. "Oh," she said, not even looking back toward her son, "don't forget -- I want specs and pricing guides for these machines on my desk by tomorrow morning." With that, she slammed the door shut.


	4. A Son's Request

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 4: A Son's Request  
_Author's note: A passage in the previous chapters somewhere has been edited from Pokemon League to Pokemon Elite, as I have discovered I want the formation of the league to be told in this story as well._  
Giovanni studied his mother's office that next morning as he sat in one chair awaiting her arrival, with a stack of papers in his hands. The room was small, less than ten feet in any direction. There was a small metal desk, a large leather office chair, a smaller leather chair opposite the big one, a metal bookcase, a stained-glass window with abstract colorful designs, a gold clock on the red walls, and a black safe behind the desk. Not that there was room to hold a lot of furniture, but Giovanni's mother wasn't the cluttered type anyway. She was the type who would sell all her possessions for one rare item -- even if it meant living in an empty house for the rest of her life.

Finally, his mother walked in, sat down in her big leather chair, and twirled around for a moment before coming to rest and staring into her son's eyes. Before she could speak, though, her cell phone rang.

"Madame Roquet," she announced cheerfully. "Ah yes, that sounds perfect. We would definitely like to come to the meeting. I'm certain we'll find mutual benefits. Thank you. Goodbye!"

As she placed her cell phone, one of the first in the region to have a camera installed on it, in her suit jacket pocket, she clasped her hands together and rested her elbows on her desk, leaning forward in great interest. "Those are the specs I requested?"

Giovanni nodded and handed them over, suppressing his reluctance to do so. Fortunately, he had spent most of the night "fixing" the blueprints so most of his ideas wouldn't be made public, but his mother didn't need to know that. "Who was that?"

She smiled. "There are certain trainers interested in starting a league of some kind to help regulate the training process. They have grand plans to grow it into an international body. These elites, as they like to call themselves, will require regional assistance to help in the training of young pokemon journey-takers. They want to instill a sense of discipline and honor among those who currently view pokemon training as a hobby. They plan on remodeling their headquarters into a huge stadium where the best of the best will come and test their mettle. It's such a fascinating concept -- and I want our family to take part in this as well. That's why we will provide food and merchandise services, if our contract talks work out -- but I'm sure they will." She glanced at the blueprints for the training machines. "Maybe we can also sell training machines to young trainers -- really cater to the sense of beating the top guys by any means." She noticed her son making a contorted face of disgust. "Spit it out, boy."

"Why be content to serve these 'elites'? Our path is obvious, yet once again you take 'the road less traveled.'"  
"We could become rich beyond our wildest dreams if this works out," she retorted derisively. "I can't see why you don't want the best out of your life. If you'd stop playing around and get serious, there could be no stopping us."

Giovanni grabbed the thin arms of his seat, turning his knuckles white. He informed her through gritted teeth, "That's what I've been _attempting_ to accomplish. With more support from you we could turn my 'playing around' gym into an official one, once they start labeling such things. Being a gym leader would give us more access to League decisions than simply making nachos for a bunch of Pokemon Master-wannabes. I don't see why you, a trainer yourself, can't appreciate my goals, since in my opinion they're more worthwhile than yours."

She stood up and slapped her hand on the desk in front of her. "Listen to me, boy," she threatened, "if you want to see your twentieth birthday this year, you won't insult me like that again, do you understand? I will _always_ be your superior and don't you forget it! I was training pokemon before your geodude was a pebble on the mountainside!"

Giovanni smirked. "Pfbbt. For all your talk of superior training ability, I've yet to see you go out and actually train."

Madame Roquet leaned back and laughed. "Fine. You want to challenge me, go right ahead and see how far you get."

Giovanni glanced around. "Where do you want to battle?"

She pointed to her desk. "Right here, in this room, you little twerp."

Giovanni's face twisted in confusion. "The room's rather small and," he noted with great satisfaction, "my pokemon are very destructive."

She glared at him, all sense of the ditzy gold-digger vanishing. "I only need one pokemon to take you down before your team can make a single move. Now choose."

"One-on-one, then?"

Madame Roquet shrugged. "I only need one. Choose as many as you like."

"Go, Gaia!" he announced, releasing his geodude from its pokeball. It appeared on her desk, pumping its arms in a show of strength. Giovanni smiled maliciously. "Earthquake."

"Protect," his mother announced strangely. After all, she never called out a pokemon. A faint glow covered every item in the room as Gaia punched the desk to rattle the room, although its face expressed some doubts over whether or not this was a good idea. Madame Roquet's face relaxed as nothing happened. She condescendingly petted the rock pokemon on the head. "There, there, Gaia. It's not your fault your performance was positively ghastly -- it was your arrogant trainer's."

"A Ghastly?" Giovanni barked. "Figures. Why bother with a defensive move like that, though? They are immune to ground attacks."

Madame Roquet chuckled to herself. "You were going to destroy all of my expensive furniture." She leaned forward in an exaggerated way and crossed her eyes. "_Duh…_

Giovanni was about to recall his pokemon when his mother cheerfully announced, "Mega drain." A green aura filled the room and then settled onto Gaia, who suffered intensely as its life force was drained from it. A green blob of light floated away from Gaia and stopped just behind Giovanni's mother, briefly illuminating the basketball-sized ball of purple gas, its glaring eyes and vampiric fangs shuddering Giovanni's soul. The ghost pokemon absorbed the green light and announced with a gloomy voice yet a cheerful smile, "Ghas, ghastly." Gaia shuddered and fainted, rolling off the desk and nearly smashing Giovanni's feet. He sighed, disgusted, and recalled his favorite pokemon into its pokeball. So this was going to be a metaphysical battle, then, he thought to himself. Fine.

"Abra!" he ordered, demanding the golden cat-fox-like pokemon appear before it. It called out its name and promptly went back to sleep on the desk.

Madame Roquet laughed. "I told you you were lazy and good for nothing! Lily can wipe up the floor with a psychic pokemon!"

Giovanni nodded and bowed in fake humility. "Be my guest, then -- show this pathetic worm of a human being how it's done."

"Dream eater," she ordered. "Destroy that abra's dreams!" Her ghastly, Lily, nodded and its eyes glowed as it telepathically intruded into the young abra's mind and proceeded to search for its most emotional dreams. However, Lily, in her own language, expressed her confusion to her trainer since there did not seem to be much success. "Strange," she replied quietly.

"Isn't it, though?" Giovanni replied wryly. "Better try again to make sure."

Madame Roquet sighed and shrugged. "It is a pity to have to do this to my flesh and blood, but," she added, nodding towards Lily, "shadow ball -- blow that thing's soul to the other realm!"

A ball of dark smoke appeared, equal in size to the ghost pokemon who formed it, and shot forth toward the sleeping pokemon. It tossed the golden pokemon back toward Giovanni, who grunted as he was sent flying toward the wall just behind him. Finally, after convulsing, the body of the abra shattered into several pieces like pottery. Just as Madame Roquet's eyes widened in the shock of this development, she felt a rush of air behind her. She turned around to see another, more lively abra floating just behind Lily, who also was beginning to turn around. A dark aura enveloped the ghost pokemon. The abra teleported in a brief shaft of light, reappearing on the desk, standing tall and proud. Just as his mother ordered another shadow ball, Lily screamed in terror and flew quickly through the walls of the office, wailing in horror.

Madame Roquet stood there, staring blankly at the spot in the wall where Lily disappeared. She turned to her son, who was grinning as he got a book from her bookshelf and pretended to read with a sarcastically snobbish air.

He cleared his throat. "Substitute: the formation of a corporeal double that absorbs a foe's attacks without harming one's pokemon." He flipped a few pages and continued his lecture. "Torment: a feeling of dread is imposed onto a pokemon to such an extent that successive use of a particular move drives the foe into a frenzy of distraught trauma." He tossed the randomly-picked book at his mother. "I hope you give my idea some further thought -- mother," he said cheerfully as he beckoned Abra to leave the room with him.


	5. Ralts

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 5: Ralts  
Delia stumbled as she hopped over the wooden fence surrounding Mr. Oak's, or rather, Professor Oak's, large estate. She turned around and scooped up her ralts from the other side of the fence, determined to carry it over the large distance from the edge of the farm to the Professor's house. She could already hear, though, the loud din of construction. As she carried her ralts, a doll-like pokemon with a white body and a green bowl-cut-like cap of scales, it chirped in a very disappointed voice as she kept stumbling over the furrows of the farmland. She looked down, trying to hide her irritation, and asked, "Do you want to walk?" The ralts shook its head. "Well, then this is how to get to Mr. Oak's house. I can't help that it takes a while to get there from the back of the farm."

Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming urge to pee. She let down her ralts and hopped hurriedly over to the nearest group of bushes near the trees that served as windbreaks and hid herself, taking down her pants. She waited and waited but nothing came out. She stood up and looked quizzically at her ralts. "That's weird," she noted. "Just a couple of seconds ago I felt like I was going to explode!" She noticed her ralts shaking its head and urinating discretely in a small pit it had created, then covered up with loose dirt.

"Ralts, ralts," her psychic pokemon said before giggling and shaking its head again. It pointed to itself, then Delia, then crossed its small arms over its heart.

"So, _you_ had to go, and you made me think _I_ had to go just so you could get your point across?" Delia asked, confused. "Our thoughts were, like, synchronized, or something?"

Her ralts nodded.

"DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!" Delia boomed before jumping out from behind the bushes, only to fall as she realized she still hadn't pulled up her pants. She pulled them up quickly and pointed angrily at her new pokemon. "Look, I don't like making a fool of myself like that! Can't you, like, find another way to tell me you need to go to the bathroom?"

The pokemon shrugged and smiled embarrassingly, since it didn't know it would bother her trainer that much. Empathic synchronization was even easier than telepathy and was the preferred mode of communication among ralts and its evolutionary siblings, kirlias and gardevoirs. Although sometimes the three-year-old ralts found some abra, who regularly conversed with humans mentally in their own tongue, in its home region, far from this new place, it couldn't understand the need to mimic human speech using telepathy. After all, images combined with sensations were more potent than words could ever be. Still, the ralts didn't want to make its new trainer uncomfortable -- it knew the human female was not like the ones who caught it. It didn't appreciate being forced from its nest in a far away land, although it did like the stimulation it received once it got here. No pokemon nor human cared as much about its performance as the ones who now looked after her.

An hour after walking, Delia stopped in the middle of a grassy area in the middle of the tilled ground. She could finally see the house, with its windmill turning gently in the breeze. She could also see -- and smell -- dozens of pokemon that assisted in the construction efforts, putting up fences, planting trees and flowers, plastering new walls…

"I wish I didn't have to walk anymore," Delia whined, taking off her sneakers and rubbing her feet. "Don't get me wrong, I'm sure exercise is very important, but it's so tiring…"

"Ralts, ralts," the pokemon announced in a tone that suggested it had an idea.

"I would rather not teleport, thank you very much," Delia said, shaking her head. "I've never done that and I'd be afraid you'd put me back together backwards or something."

"Ralts!" it retorted in a "Hmph!"-kinda way, turning its back on its trainer.

"It's nothing personal, dang," Delia replied.

Suddenly a huge roar shook them out of their brief argument and forced the two to gaze skyward. A large winged lizard came flying toward them, an orange western-style dragon with flames coming out of its tail. It landed a few feet away from them and nodded its head toward its back, as if to invite them for a lift.

The ralts eagerly glided over to the six-and-a-half-foot creature, a charizard, and studied its body most intently, as it had never seen such a fire pokemon before. It got too close, however, to the tail flames, and scorched one of its hands.

Delia screamed and swore a blue streak as she blew on her own hands, which were beginning to redden. She glared at her pokemon, although a part of her felt sorry for the poor clumsy thing, "Dang it, ralts! Be careful! I don't want to end up in the hospital because you can't stop linking your feelings to me!"

The charizard snorted in retaliation toward Delia, then growled softly at the ralts, nuzzling its head in concern. Ralts nodded after blowing on its hands some more and portrayed its feelings to its trainer.

Delia felt a wave of relief come over her. "Well," she said more humbly, "I'm glad you're alright, but try to remember to keep yourself safe, okay?"

"Ralts!" it chirped happily as they got on the charizard for a short flight to Professor Oak's house.


	6. The New Professor

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 6: The New Professor  
_Author's Note: well, Act 1 is winding down. Ralt's Synchronize ability will become important later on, but there's probably only about 4-6 more chaps for this act, if that._

Delia and her Ralts, who while riding on the back of the charizard Delia named Roll-On, landed safely at the back door of the Oak residence, as the front doorway was filled with pokemon construction workers. She carefully entered the back door, her hands leaving smeared sweat on the handle. This was the man who was taking her family's life away. This was the man who was abandoning a whole section of the economy of Pallet Town.

All so he could play school with the trainers of pokemon.

How could she forgive him?

"Excuse me," a teenage boy said abruptly as he tried to get past her toward the back door, "would you and that weird pokemon get out of the way, please? If you're not here to help, get your business over with and leave." Delia was surprised that anyone was still wearing the mullet hairstyle anymore. If he tied his hair back he could almost be a masculine version of Delia herself.

She pushed him backwards. "Excuse _me_," she replied, "but you're kind of rude. Roll-On and I need to speak with Mr. Oak."

The teenage boy's voice box quivered, as did his lips, as he alternated glances between this rude girl and her pokemon. Before long, he couldn't stand it any longer and burst out laughing, bracing himself against Delia's shoulders for balance. His eyes were so tightly shut from sheer guffawing that he failed to realize the exact placement of his hands …

Wham! Delia headbutted the pervert, causing him to stop laughing and fall back, completely stunned. However, he recovered enough to continue snickering some more. "Roll-On?" he asked between giggles. "Are you serious?" He laughed half-heartedly while rubbing the sore spot on his forehead. "What names did you give your other pokemon? Maybe T. P. or Tweezor? Or Makeup? You seem like a 'Shower Curtain'-kind of girl." He laughed a little again.

"Laugh it up, fuzzy," she replied coldly, although a slight smile betrayed itself. "It seemed appropriate, given its look." She smiled warmly at her pokemon. "Besides, I think it's a great name and she seems to like it."

"Yeah, whatever," he told her, getting up and nodding as he went past her outside.

Delia took Roll-On to a room where Mr. Oak kept all his priceless pokemon books from his college days. They were stacked everywhere in clumsy heaps, with papers falling out of some of them. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry," an adult male voice announced cheerfully. "I keep meaning to straighten those, but I'm in the middle of building an addition to my house and half of it will compose my library."

She looked around and spotted a thirties-ish man with short-cropped brown hair and broad shoulders, his body muscular and well-toned. She had met him once before at a birthday party, but he seemed like such a moron. Yeah, he was smart, but he was pathetic when it came to common sense stuff. In any case, she decided to get down to business.

"I hear you're going to be a Pokemon Professor," she started, trying to feign confidence. She noticed out of the corner of her eye Roll-On sighing and shaking her head slightly. They'll have a talk when they get home, she thought to herself, wondering if her pokemon could hear her. "My parents work for you and we distribute crops to the restaurant in Viridian," she added. "I just want to know how you can sleep with yourself knowing you're putting my parents and every other hard-working sharecropper out of work."

He laughed nervously for a moment. "Ha, uh, well," he stuttered, "I can see you have some misconceptions…."

"I don't have 'misconceptions', sir," she replied angrily. "All I know is that you're ending our way of life!"

His smile faded. "Look, um, Miss -- I'm not ending anything. After all, every ending is a new beginning. I just got a letter today from one of the Pokemon Elites: they are setting up a league and they will require my assistance, as well as other pokemon scientists, to research pokemon and determine what would make good starters for beginning trainers." He stopped, having noticed the girl's strange pokemon. "What is that?"

Delia stepped in front of her pokemon to shield it from view. "Don't change the subject. What are families like mine supposed to do?"

"Well, I intended from the start to enlist their help in my research. I'll need field agents, mythologists, artists and photographers, sound recorders, behaviorists -- everything required so I can help the Pokemon League construct logical and reasonable rules of training behavior." He cleared his throat. "In fact I just hired a student from the next region over. He is learning about ancient languages, which should prove useful in our studies." He nodded towards Delia. "You're welcome to join this project too, you know. Is there anything in particular you'd enjoy?"

"I already was offered a job with the owner of the restaurant," she said proudly, only though she just accepted Madame Roquet's offer in her mind just now. "Thanks anyway."

"Well, I see," the Pokemon Professor replied thoughtfully. "If you change your mind, I could always use a good researcher in pokemon nutrition. If you become interested, of course."

"Not likely," she said, exiting the cluttered room with her pokemon.


	7. Gaia

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 7: Gaia  
A five-foot-tall concrete block stood before Giovanni and his geodude, Gaia. Except for a few red-stained dents here and some brown-stained dents there, it was largely intact. Giovanni silently studied the block for about an hour, while Gaia mirrored his pose, with steepled fingers to display deep thought.

_The day Gaia first met her trainer, well over three years ago, she was creating nesting sites for some bird pokemon in the cliff face she called home, near the mystical Mount Moon -- a place regularly endangered by freak attacks courtesy of winged pink pokemon called clefairy and clefable, whose metronome attack was the most feared of all in their repertoire. A simple rhythmic waving of their tiny fingers, and suddenly huge boulders could be thrown your way or a cave could flood or a confusing wave of psychic energy could spread out and make other pokemon hallucinate._

In any case, the geodude kept pounding rhythmically at the cliff face, creating small ledges, when she heard a scream. She looked down and spotted her future trainer stumbling quickly out of a cavern that led to some dangerous areas within Mount Moon. He fell finally just below her while a horde of angry clef airy stampeded after him. When they reached him they began chanting their names, waving their tiny fingers back and forth. The geodude could feel the rocks behind her loosen. They were going to create a rock slide, she thought. She jumped off the ledge where she had been making nesting sites and landed just in front of the young human male, who was desperately wiping what looked like sludge from his eyes. As the rocks and boulders finally loosened and came crashing down, the geodude grunted and used one fist to pound the ground toward the horde of clef airy while using the other to summon her control over falling rocks.

A rush of kinetic energy rumbled the ground and knocked down the little pink pokemon just as the largest of the falling boulders landed in a circular pattern around the geodude and the human, building to an igloo-shaped tomb over them. The geodude could hear the clef airy stomp off, their pride hurt. When it seemed clear the rocky pokemon nudged the human, pointed at the ground, and started digging a short tunnel out from under the large boulders. At last, when the human male emerged behind the geodude, he stood, kicked the dirt in frustration, and threw a rock toward the entrance to Mount Moon. He cursed the clefairy, his eyes still watering from the sludge created from their metronome attack inside.

"Geo, dude, dude, geodude, geo," she remarked in a concerned voice.

He didn't look at her, but kept his back turned. "I don't need another mother, you big ball of rock," he said, gritting his teeth. He surveyed the damaged surroundings. Finally, he turned around and sighed. "Still, I've never heard of a pokemon managing two attacks at once. You were very clever -- I'll give you that." He stroked his chin. "Perhaps I've been rude. I've been rather stressed out and it was wrong of me to take it out on you. If you wish, I'd like to make it up to you by making you my partner. I already train a young nidoran male, and I think you two would get along nicely."

"Gaia," Giovanni finally announced, "hand me those steel gloves in front of you."

Gaia uttered a sense of doubt, looking up at her trainer. He quickly glanced at her. "Obviously, if I continue to punch this block I could end up with useless hands. However, if I were to reinforce my hands, I can still develop my strength while protecting my skin from further harm." He grinned briefly. "I'm not softening, Gaia. I'm just using my head."

After putting on the special gloves, he glared at the block, wishing for a moment that it was his mother. She had taken his advice, after a whole week, and had begun preparations to finance the remodeling of the Roquet Café. It was to become a gym and would hopefully have full official sanction within a couple of months of its completion. All in all, Giovanni _should_ have been very happy. Instead, his mother insisted on developing the gym to her own specifications and left him to design uniforms for their … employees, so Giovanni was more than a little resentful that his dream -- no, it wasn't his dream to have a gym of his own, for that was just a mere stepping stone in the great river of life. No, his real dream of climbing to the top of the new regulatory agency, the Pokemon League, was what he was really after. He didn't care about being an elite, such as they were, but once in power he would manipulate the whole region of Kanto … and maybe Johto … to his liking.

He nodded to Gaia, who took position opposite him on the other side of the concrete block. They weren't merely attempting to test their strength. The idea was that, with careful strategy, several well-placed punches would crack the block in such a way that with one more punch it would crumble like a sandcastle. For that is the way Giovanni had come to love: power mixed with cunning. A brute can be out-thought while a geek can be overpowered -- it was the combination that showed him the path to the universe.

And by his side would be Delia, even though he had his concerns about bringing her into Team Rocket. His mother seemed to think it was a good idea, since the girl did have potential. Still, she could be so idealistic sometimes. He doubted if she could pull off the hard decisions they may need to make.

Her major flaw was that she was spoiled, even though her family was poor. She had never lost anything of any major consequence, for you can't truly mourn for a cared object or person if they are not to be had in the first place. He shook his head and concentrated on the block, smashing into it about halfway up, watching cracks spread over the face of the block. He was getting so close, he thought. Gaia, on the other side, provided an uppercut of her own, smashing away concrete and leaving a large upward dent on her side. Several more cracks could be heard forming on the top as the weight distribution began to shift. Delia, he realized, would need to overcome adversity. She, if she were going to be a valuable member of Team Rocket, would have to learn to dig herself out of the hole of despair.

"You know, there are machines for that sort of thing," an adult female voice sneered playfully.

Giovanni turned around and met the eyes of a young woman with long purple hair and a loose-fitting blue dress that captured sunlight with its sequins and dazzled the eye. "That's not the point," he retorted, angry that his exercises were interrupted by a friend of his mother's.

She sighed. "I know, Sakaki …"

"_Giovanni_," he corrected her bitterly.

She shook her head. "You shouldn't disrespect your mother like that, … _boy_," she replied haughtily. "That woman feeds you and shelters you and you abandon the name she gave you?"

"The children should improve upon their parents' ideals," he noted, quickly tiring of his anger toward her. After all, she wasn't worth it when his mother was the true impediment to his dreams.

The woman nodded. "You have a point, I guess."

Giovanni laughed. "You're the first one to say so." He nodded toward her. "What brings you here? Did Mother let you off early today?"

She smiled. "I'm off today, actually," she replied, sighing. "I'm taking my daughter to a fair over in Vermillion. I haven't managed to take her to one in the last couple of years because I couldn't afford it."

"You should demand more money," he told her in a serious tone. "My mother isn't nearly as poor as she wants others to think."

The woman laughed. "I know that … Giovanni," she said. "Besides, your mother is already going to be paying me handsomely for roaming the region -- if you must know. Even though Team Rocket is taking its first steps, she wants me to look for other business opportunities so we can fund all that needs to go into Team Rocket."

"Are you going to take your daughter? It could be a nuisance to have a kid following you around."

She growled momentarily before sighing and shaking her head. "No, I don't want that for her. My little rose petal is my angel, and I don't want to put her in harm's way. You wouldn't happen to know any good babysitters, would you? Aren't you seeing a girl nowadays?"

Giovanni laughed. "My 'girl' isn't the mothering type, sorry," he informed her. "She has to be taught how to tie her own shoes." He smirked. "But I'm certain we can arrange it, if need be -- with someone else. Her father isn't too thrilled with the child he's got, much less a new one. He tends to make me look downright compassionate, sometimes."

"That's too bad," the woman noted sadly, "but I'm sure it will work out. Things always do eventually."


	8. The PreInterview

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 8: The Pre-Interview

Delia was fast asleep, her head lying snugly in Giovanni's lap as he sat cross-legged at the base of a large tree deep within the Viridian Forest. He stroked her long brown hair tenderly. He struggled to keep his plans to himself today. He had to make sure that every thought, no matter how inconsequential, was tailored to their date. The sun was just beginning to set, but Delia had already been exhausted from her trek from Oak's ranch. Her first thought had been to rush to Giovanni's side, begging for comfort. She was still angry with the Professor, although he had told her that her family would not be fired … just … _repurposed_.

Giovanni smiled as he looked down on her, the orange glow of sunset giving her soft face a warm hue, almost flushed. Indeed, this was a time of changes. He had given his mother sketches of costume designs for Team Rocket -- which she promptly complained were too simplistic. He admired the whole 'yin-yang' feel of the black and white designs, since he viewed life in much the same way. She accepted them only after her son had gritted through his teeth that they could be accessorized to each member's liking. His mother then left to go contact various people around Kanto, so that appropriate training facilities for Team Rocket could be set up. One day, Giovanni vowed to himself, he would change that too. He would focus more on strength and willpower. He would prove to the world that his mother's subtle approach, indicative of her training ghost pokemon -- who always used subtlety and misdirection in their battle strategies -- was improper, to say the least.

"Ralts," chirped Delia's Ralts happily as it returned from its, from her, short walk investigating the flora and fauna of the forest, for she loved discovering new things.

Giovanni couldn't stomach the name Delia had given her. How juvenile, he thought. Still, Delia was going to have to prove herself worthy of being his equal. And this date was the perfect start for what could end up being a very carefully planned interview with Team Rocket. After all, if she didn't past muster, then it was foolish to let her know just how deep into the underworld Giovanni's family wished to go. He motioned for the psychic pokemon to come closer. He smiled warmly and spoke in hushed tones so as not to awaken his girlfriend.

"Would you like a snack?" he asked. It chirped happily. He nodded. "Do you see the berries above us?" It replied positively. "Good. There are berries like those all over these trees. If you collect a bunch of the different kinds, I can make you up a smoothie I think you'll enjoy." He forced happy thoughts of sharing frosty fruity treats, of playing in the woods at sunset -- any positive daydream he could come up with. It was a test of one's will, he believed, to be able to keep one's true nature from psychics.


	9. Two Sides of the Same Coin

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 9: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Delia held the pokeball in her jeans pocket to keep it from coming out as she rode furiously to Giovanni's gym, taking the trail to ensure a smoother (if longer) ride to Viridian. Roll-On had been sweating profusely and vomiting this morning, its white flesh becoming even paler, if that were possible. She had started to see strange bruises all over its body when she decided to take the thing to the one who should know how to fix it.

She couldn't take it to Professor Oak -- this pokemon wasn't from Kanto and even if he knew something about it, she didn't trust him.

He'd take Roll-On away from her, she just knew it.

She finally burst into the gym -- not the basement, but the gym on the main floor, under construction and replacing the main dining room of the restaurant. Large doors were being erected as she walked past the security guards with their growlithes and arboks. She headed straight for his small office at the back of the building. When she entered, she noticed the young student of Oak's standing beside Giovanni as he sat in a dark leather chair. The student, still obsessed with his brunette mullet, was pointing to some ancient-looking gold coins on the desk, talking about the language featured on several of the specimens. He looked up at Delia in shock, aware no doubt that she must look like her whole family had been killed. Giovanni, on the other hand, was sweating and coughing momentarily, stifling it as she came closer. He dabbed his forehead with a silk handkerchief. "Delia, if this can wait…"

She angrily thrust the pokeball on his mahogany desk, causing the coins to scatter onto the floor. "It can't! This was _your_ pokemon -- you fix it!"

He struggled to keep his breathing smooth. He glanced at Oak's student. "Have you ascertained the thief?"

The student nodded. "A young meowth has been caught outside the back of the pokemon center -- it's been stealing coins from numerous houses." He paused and nodded toward Delia. "Perhaps I can appraise these for you after her visit?"

"No, Spencer," Giovanni coughed, waving at him dismissively. He gasped. "Appraise them now."

"But --" Spencer and Delia muttered at the same time.

Giovanni wheezed and tossed a small lozenge into his mouth. "Does this meowth have taste or is it just a petty thief?"

Spencer cleared his throat, the stench of sickness beginning to permeate the room. "The coins are rare and at least several centuries old, predating most cities of Kanto. They could be as old as, but unlikely to be older than, the extinct city of Pokemopolis. To answer your question -- this meowth is quite the coin collector."

"How are you going to fix Roll-On?" Delia demanded. However, as upset as she was, she was concerned that both her pokemon and her lover appeared to be weakening. What if she were to lose both of them? Maybe she could get over the loss of her pokemon, since she'd only known it for a short time, but she had known Giovanni since she was ten.

"It's symptoms?" he asked curtly.

She couldn't believe he wasn't taking this more seriously. "Whatever you seem to have, but worse."

A flicker of recognition seemed to ignite in his eyes briefly, but it soon vanished. He nodded. "Take it down to the basement. We've got some first aid stuff down there. We'll figure out what's wrong."

"You should call a pokemon nurse in Hoenn," Spencer advised, his voice serious and low.

Giovanni looked at him in surprise. "How do you know where this thing comes from?"

Spencer frowned. "I read, sir."

Delia shoved Spencer into one of the office walls, causing a picture of his mother and her friend Miyamoto to shatter on the floor. "If you know so much about it, why don't you tell me how to fix it?"

He grabbed her hands and shook her away. He straightened his blue shirt and tan jeans. "I've only read brief articles about Hoenn pokemon. I don't know what's wrong with yours specifically, but it sounds as though it's poisoned."

Giovanni stood, but wobbled slightly. "All the more reason to bring it down to the basement, Delia." He stopped to catch his breath. "We have a ton of antidotes -- weedle and beedrill have become a problem in the forest, so I make sure everyone here has at least a few antidotes lying around." He pushed a button on his phone, a red one set apart from the numerical keys, and two young men entered the office and took the pokeball and left.

Delia looked at her lover pleadingly. "What are they going to do?"

"They will attempt a biopsy to determine the poison's nature," he replied, popping another lozenge.

"They're going to _kill_ it?" she screamed. She felt as though she were going to faint.

Spencer shook his head imperceptibly. "A _biopsy_, not an _autopsy_. Your pokemon will be alive. _Autopsies_ are examinations for the already dead."

She sighed in deep relief. "Oh." She finally nodded. "I'll go down there so she won't feel lonely." She started to leave, but stopped and turned and stared at Giovanni with a concerned look. "Are you going to be okay? Have you been poisoned too?" She looked at the door, then looked back at her lover. "Maybe those freakin' little bugs are starting to poison everyone who comes through the forest."

Giovanni smiled warmly -- well, as well as he could since he looked like his insides were liquefying. "I'm certain I'll be fine momentarily. Once I uncover an answer, I always recover from the question."

She nodded and left, blowing him a kiss on the way out.

Shortly after she walked into the small clinic in the basement, she was joined by Giovanni. He leaned against her for support, although she could tell his stamina was returning. She didn't like seeing him that way -- vulnerable. He was always getting on top of things.

_Like the time she met him in the town square six years ago, during a traveling fair, he was untouchable. He was shooting balloons at a cart just inside the entrance. She had stopped following her family to watch as he shot balloon after balloon. They were filled with gas and the idea was to shoot them before the expanding gas popped them. A young boy was next to him and the child was laughing with his friends, not paying attention to where he was shooting. A shot rang out … _

And soon after, another. Delia's eyes had closed to prevent her from seeing something she was sure would be awful -- but she opened them again when she heard a string of swear words before the sound of a man, the vendor, fainting. Giovanni had shot directly at the vendor, his bullet striking the errant bullet and causing it to ricochet off into the frame of the cart. He grabbed the stunned boy's gun and, emptying out the bullets, tossed it aside. "Grow some brains before you play, moron!" he shouted angrily.

But now, here he was, sick for maybe the first time ever since she'd known him. It made her blood run cold. She nuzzled him for several minutes, certain he was nuzzling her back.

Until an olive-skinned woman appeared and bowed solemnly. "The pokemon did not survive, young sir," she announced, then turned abruptly and left.

Delia remembered screaming, rushing toward the woman as she walked away, only to be stopped by the firm hands of her lover. He pulled her back to him. He brushed her soft brown hair out of her face and spoke with a renewed sense of vigor, "Don't torture yourself, Delia. Death happens. It was inconvenient and a terrible loss for you but life goes on. We can't obsess over every little mishap."


	10. Roughing Up the Diamond

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 1: DIAMONDSHIPPING  
Chapter 10: Roughing Up the Diamond

Giovanni was beginning to think she couldn't take it. If she couldn't get past one simple pokemon death, how was she to deal with the traumas Team Rocket could expose to her?

Torture and death happened daily, there was no avoiding it. Even on days when torture and death were absent, you could still count on someone planning them.

_When he was five, he remembered his mother, a very young woman, as she began to tear her living room apart. He started to cry. She stopped only long enough to slap him. "You ungrateful little brat!" she roared. "I could have had everything -- I could have been a master at training pokemon by now -- but you've ruined that for me! All that stupid moron can talk about is how we need to settle down and raise our family -- but he's living in some God-forsaken dream world! I don't want a family! I wanted power! I wanted money! Now I'm stuck with some blood-sucking brat that's stealing the best years of my life away from me!" She screamed, exasperated, and stomped out of the house. _

He had watched the sun come up five times before his mother returned. He had eaten what was in the fridge, but he was smelly and hungry. She finally opened the front door, a large bottle in hand, and used it to strike him down when she realized through her haze that he still existed. Instead of crying, however, he stood back up and kicked her in the shins. "You can't treat me that way!" he yelled.

She paused, wobbling. Finally she laughed. "That's what I told HIM, kid." She tossed the empty bottle in the kitchen sink and sat down on the living room couch. "I'm not going to let him or you drag me down. I released all my pokemon yesterday. I'm going to go to Lavender tomorrow and start catching some pokemon that might actually help me get what I want. I want him to suffer, kid," she told him as if she were handing out orders at a corporate meeting. "If I have to channel all the unholy energies of Hell itself, I will make that freak repent the day he dared to suggest I was a two-bit failure."

Giovanni caressed Delia's long brown hair. "I'm so glad you've decided to join us," he told her lovingly. "You can have all the pokemon you want."

She jerked back and slapped him, pure dark hatred seething from her eyes. "Is that all you think about?" she asked furiously. "Don't you care that she died?"

He scoffed. "It wasn't one-of-a-kind, Delia," he replied matter-of-factly. "You weren't around it long enough to form any appreciable bond. You have to take the card God dealt you and rise above it. If you can't do that -- I don't know how else to help you." He tried to wipe the tears from her cheek but she pulled away. He sighed. "I tried to help, Delia. My operatives did try to save … her. You could be a little more grateful." He grit his teeth in frustration. _Come on, Delia -- say it! Tell me that you will rise above adversity!_

She frowned. "You're a heartless son of a …"

He grabbed her face, using his thick hands to muffle her. His face reddened. "Witch! You won't speak like that again. I may despise my mother with the fury of a million beedrill, but you won't be calling her unsightly names again. She's useful to me … for the moment … and you will not live to jeopardize it." He growled in pain as she bit his hand and pulled back, jumping back several paces to put herself out of arm's reach. He started to punch her but she nimbly leaned back, falling to the floor, and kicking his legs out from under him. As he fell toward her, and before he could brace himself, her hand formed a blade and slammed into his throat. She rolled out from under him and got behind him and kicked him hard where it counted. He was still gasping for air … in a much higher voice … as she ran back toward Pallet.

Delia ran to the southern edge of Viridian, where she saw Professor Oak, in his new white lab coat, talking to Spencer, his student linguist. Tears were streaming down her face as she ran towards them. Spencer looked shocked but took hold of her as she tried to make her way past them. He examined her face and neck carefully before holding her close in his arms.

**Author's Note: This is the end of Act I, Diamondshipping.**


	11. Destiny Beckons

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 2: HALESHIPPING  
Chapter 11: Destiny Beckons

**Ten Years Later**

Delia awoke beside … a stray pillow atop her bed. Her eyes opened more widely and she realized he was not there. A pang of guilt swept through her, turning her stomach into a knotted mass. She shouldn't have done it, she thought to herself. She wanted to be the good wife, the perfect complement to her rising-star husband, Spencer Hale. After everything she's been through the last ten years -- the stalking incidents, the restraining orders, the Johto wedding, the new job as part-time pokemon caretaker at Professor Oak's laboratory -- she didn't want to mess it up by doing something rash and stupid.

Still, she wondered if Spencer would feel the magic of what happened last night, for it seemed to her as though it possessed the whole bedroom like a strong perfume. The expert coordination of movements, the scents, the strategies -- it was all so invigorating that she still seemed breathless the following morning. She got up and put on a simple blue robe, loosely tying the belt around her waist so that one could still see the sheer nightgown Spencer had bought for her last Valentine's day.

He was in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. He had laid out all the ingredients on the counter, down to the last pinch of salt, and Delia was amazed that he cheerfully organized cooking ingredients when she more or less tended to just throw everything together. He saw her and smiled. "Are we ready for another lesson today?" he asked, smiling.

She shook her head. "I wouldn't want to ruin your masterpiece," she laughed.

He shook his head in turn. "No, you should learn the right way to cook. It's important."

She tenderly wrapped her arms around his waist. "Why? When you're here to make me feel special?"

He cleared his throat. "I'm a professor now, Delia," he noted in a more serious tone. "Sometimes … well, sometimes I have to go to seminars and stuff like that. You should try to be more independent."

She let go and frowned, turning him so that he would meet her eyes. "When did you intend to tell me that you're leaving on an assignment?"

"I wanted to break it to you easy," he replied, running his strong fingers through her long brown hair. "I'm to take a young student out to a dig -- she's phenomenal, rising through academia and she isn't even in her teens yet. A brain like hers must be nurtured."

Delia looked over at the eggs and flour on the counter. "So does a marriage. A few months of perfection won't counter …" she retorted, in a pained sad voice, "… abandonment."

Spencer sighed. He was already dressed in khakis and a rugged work shirt and vest, its pockets filled with small archaeological tools. "Grow up, Delia. You have a job and I have a job. I can't be here to drop greppa berries in your mouth as you lie on a silk couch or something. Bills must be paid and life must go on. When will you understand that marriage is more than just the wedding?"

She slapped him square in the jaw. "If you _ever_ call me a child again, I will ensure you live to regret it!" she screamed. "How _dare_ you? I married you because you promised to help me escape my past. You're my daring knight storming through on a shiny rapidash … if I wanted to be left alone in the house all day I would've stayed single!"

He nursed the reddening spot on his jaw. "Surely we don't have to fight about this. It's only an assignment."

"And just how many more 'assignments' are you going to have?"

He sighed again and spoke increasingly slowly. "Since this is my job, it will … be … a … major … part … of … it." He stared at her, forgetting about breakfast. "I don't resent the hours you spend helping Professor Oak."

"I don't have month-long assignments like you," she replied angrily. "And whereas you come over while I'm working, I have yet to join you on one of your missions."

"Professor Oak's lab isn't dangerous," he replied sharply, finally losing his patience with such a dim-witted woman, "but some of the sites I visit are. I don't want you to get hurt."

She turned and started to walk out of the kitchen. Without looking back, she retorted, "Yet, a mere child will be perfectly safe."

"Delia …"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Don't start now. I have a job to go to today. Have a wonderful time at work … honey."

**Author's Note: This was deliberately set up so you could imagine Ash's father to be whatever ship you like best. Use your imagination.**


	12. Two weeks later

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 2: HALESHIPPING  
Chapter 12: Two Weeks Later

Delia was exhausted, having been in the bathroom most of the early morning hours. It was like she was attached to the toilet, plus she was as pale as the bathroom appliance. She couldn't bare the thought of going to work today, but perhaps it would be best to seek out help at Professor Oak's lab.

Delia slowly traveled to Oak's ranch, apologized for being late, and began to head out toward a stream where poliwag, blue and white tadpole-like pokemon, were known to swim. She looked around to make sure no one was following her. She dipped into the stream, smiling at the poliwag, and sighed as she felt a warmness below her. When she was through, she left the stream and headed back to the lab. Professor Oak was attending to some squirtles that had been shipped for the next round of beginning trainers -- inspecting their beaks, rubbing vitamin-laced salve on their shells, and clipping the ends of their claws. He looked up and saw a drenched young woman.

"What happened?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I wanted to see how the water pokemon were doing, that's all."

"You shouldn't get wet, not in your condition," he replied, setting down one particularly fussy squirtle.

Delia growled, "What condition?"

Taken aback, Oak smiled nervously. "You're late because you're sick, right? I don't want one of my pokemon caretakers to get pneumonia, that's all."

Delia tried to hide a sigh of relief. "Oh." Trying to change the subject, she asked, "Have you heard from Spencer yet?"

Professor Oak shook his head. "No. Hasn't he called you by now? Surely he's found Pokemopolis' temple. I think, if I remember correctly -- wait!" he exclaimed as he tried to run down the grouchy squirtle as it tried to dash out of the lab, who doused him with water gun, making his slightly graying hair glistening with drops of shiny beads of water. He coughed and squeezed his lab jacket to wring out the water and looked back at Delia with a sheepish grin on his face. "Well, I haven't heard back from him today. His report isn't due for another week or so, so you'll be the first one he calls if he tries to contact anyone before then."

Delia nodded and bowed slightly. "Thank you, Professor." As she turned to leave, he coughed. She glanced back at him.

"Ahem, Delia," he said in a serious tone, "if you need any assistance, just let me know."

She smiled barely. "Thanks, Professor, but I'm fine. Really."

She turned to leave again but bumped into a solid mass of a man. She gasped as she stumbled backwards, tripping on a pokeball left lying on the floor. Professor Oak managed to catch her just before she smacked her head against the small table where the squirtle looked on nervously.

The man, his brown hair slicked back, dusted off his black pinstriped suit and glanced briefly at Delia before turning his attention to Professor Oak. "I've come to …"

"… ignore your restraining order," Delia interrupted, frowning as she stood back up.

Giovanni ignored her. "I've come to check your database you use to input entries into the pokedex, Professor. My gym has had a lot of pokemon lately that bite my kadabra and it's doing more damage than it should."

"So the old abra you caught evolved, then?" Professor Oak asked, patting Delia on the shoulder. He glanced at her. "Why don't you go on ahead home, Delia. Come back when you're more fully rested."

"You're sick?" Giovanni asked dryly, showing little if any emotion. "What are your symptoms?"

Delia groaned. "It's just something I ate, that's all. I'm not going to deal with this today. I think I will go home." As she tried to make it past Giovanni, a young researcher entered excitedly, his face aglow with information.

"Professor! Professor! The poliwag in the stream downwind of the tauros herd are laying a bunch of unfertilized eggs on the shore! It's not mating season -- maybe there's something wrong with the water?"

Delia glanced at Giovanni. She noted with horror that he returned her glance for an instant, as if he knew the significance of the news. She glanced back at Professor Oak. "Is it alright if I leave, Professor? I should be better by tomorrow. I'll let you know if Spencer calls."

Professor Oak nodded in half-interest, as he was taking notes from the hyperactive researcher, who couldn't help jumping up and down and gesturing wildly as he recounted the events he witnessed.

As Delia brushed by Giovanni, he whispered into her ear. "Let me know if you need some lum berry bread, Delia. My wife says it cured her of nausea … perhaps it would help you as well."

"Back off," she whispered back angrily as she left the lab.


	13. Thinking of You

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 2: HALESHIPPING  
Chapter 13: Thinking of You

Spencer Hale lightly dusted the pottery shards early that morning as Eve brought him a couple of boxes for sorting the different items. They weren't too far away from Pallet Town, but it would still be a long drive to see Delia since the roads were clogged with excavation equipment. The girl was very bright, he thought to himself -- maybe in a year or two she could finally get her doctorate in archaeology. He was still amazed to hear that she was less than ten years old. He had never met a child as gifted as she was. Well, it could happen. One day he and Delia would be parents and hopefully their child would be just as intelligent.

"With all the huts we've discovered, surely the temple can't be that far off," Eve noted wistfully. He had noticed that she never complained of the tedious work but veiled her boredom as wishful thinking.

He smiled at her. "Yes, I think you're right. We should be honing in on it now. We're just going to have to look at that cliff face again." He placed some shards in one of the boxes. "The entire cliff seems to be sloping in certain places, like a heap of eroded rocks in a landslide. Perhaps the temple entrance is behind those rocks."

"Are you going to tell Mrs. Hale?" she asked. "I bet she'd like to come and see this."

He paused before replying. "Yes. I'm sure she would too."

_He bounced up and down on his toes for a moment, anxiously awaiting the music to start. They had decided to do the ceremony on the southern coast of Kanto, just a few miles south of Pallet Town. The salty air and the bright sunshine and the relaxing sound of waves crashing would add to the mood of the event. They had rented a small cabin nearby to get dressed and feed the multitude at the reception, and soon Spencer was wondering if they had done the right thing -- the cabin seemed so small now. Already, the fifty or so pews in two columns were filled with relatives and neighbors from both Kanto and Johto. Nothing but the guests whispering and the wild pokemon chirping and singing could be heard. It was so perfect._

Now, if she'd only start the ceremony.

Finally, he sighed as a light melody started to waft from the chorus situated just ahead of him and to the right, while the rabbi and the preacher stood together in ceremonial robes, awaiting the bride with only slightly less anxiety than the groom. Spencer looked up and saw a rainbow appear in the sky. Odd, he thought, since there wasn't the slightest chance of rain forecast for that day. In any case, he smiled to himself, it added a fine touch to an already beautiful scene.

He wondered if he should call Delia and invite her over to the site. There was little danger, after all. Still, she was so moody lately. She had hung up on him the last couple of times he tried to talk to her, so he stopped. She seemed depressed and angry and happy in shorter and shorter intervals. He wondered if his job was really bothering her that much. He racked his brain but he didn't understand what the problem was. They _both_ had jobs. Why did she resent his so much? It's not like he was excavating in Johto or anything. He was making enough from the digs and his university salary to allow them to make that little house in Pallet a cute summer home. For the rest of the year, he wanted them to live in Johto. He had family there, plus it was his home region. He would always prefer living there. His perfect idea of a happy life would be to run around Johto, exploring every nook and cranny, randomly picking spots to camp and excavate. Johto had so much archaeological potential -- unlike Kanto. Kanto was becoming more and more the urban intrusion into the landscape, while Johto struggled to maintain its historic and mythic sites.

That, he noted sullenly to himself, and _he_ didn't live in Johto.

He knew she sometimes took pictures out of a scrapbook and gazed at them, almost longingly. How she could still love a man who nearly beat her to death _and_ killed her pokemon in a sadistic power play was beyond him. Yet, every time he mentioned it, it only upset her to think about him. Maybe she wasn't missing Giovanni. Maybe she just wondered what could have been done differently. He supposed he could try to understand that.

On the other hand, maybe it was her parents. Her father had passed away the week after the wedding and her mother left for Lavender, never leaving a forwarding address. Surely that must be what was bothering her, he thought.

He just wished he knew. Perhaps he'd try emailing her. That way, they couldn't get into an argument over the phone. He nodded slightly. Yes, that would be the safest route since she was so volatile lately.

_As the music began to rise in volume, he turned to see Delia approaching the back of the crowd. Her hair was loosely curled and tied up high on the back of her head, the curls unfurling around her face and neck and onto her shoulders, which were bare save for the straps that held up her gleaming white dress. It was simply cut yet costly, as preserved berry flowers of multiple kinds were sewn onto the base of the dress so that she would resemble a flurry of petal dance attacks around a tapered pillar of white._

The rabbi and the preacher began their speeches when Delia walked up the red-carpeted pathway with her father, who stoically walked beside her despite the pain of the cancer eating away at him inside. To all those in attendance, he would seem the most loving father in the world, proud of the momentous occasion. However, he knew that he was merely thankful to get her out of the house, having complained for several years that she should've grown up and fled the nest sooner rather than later. Delia's expression barely acknowledged this, however, and she cried as she met up with her groom, who wore the traditional black tuxedo and white undershirt, topped off with a black yarmulke embroidered with white geometric designs.

He stopped for a moment after lunch and sat down next to his laptop, typing away a message for his wife:

**Dear Delia:**

I hope this message finds you well. I've been thinking of you all the time. The good news is that we are very close to uncovering the temple entrance. I would want you here for such a momentous occasion. It will be a great moment for archaeology. We can celebrate together, you and I. I hope you will say yes. It would bring me great joy to know that you are at my side.

Love Always,  
Spencer

He sent the email and waited. She didn't appear to be online. Well, they were at least a few days away from finding the temple entrance -- she had plenty of time to consider his offer.


	14. The Storm and Amelia

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 2: HALESHIPPING  
Chapter 14: The Storm and Amelia

It had struck sooner than he had wanted. A researcher had exploded into the tent where Spencer had been going over the plan to blast the rock away from the cliff face, sweating and pale. He barely had time to wheeze that a Zapdos had been seen approaching from the east when an army of black thunderstorm clouds rolled into view, lightning cracking and striking various trees along the way.

Spencer had to scream even into a megaphone just to be heard over the howling winds. "Stow the equipment in the shelter! Abandon the site! Repeat: abandon the site! Head to high ground!" He followed several researchers, picking up a still-working Eve and hoisting her over his shoulder, and running to his Jeep. He thrust the girl inside and revved the engine and took off just as a torrential downpour threatened to wash away the tents they had left behind. The site of Pokemopolis was in an ancient riverbed, the water having long ago abated into a green valley. The problem was that particularly vicious storms could flood the site -- indeed, it may have been the cause of that civilization's demise centuries ago. Normal rainfall did little, but Zapdos, a yellow and black bird with electrified wings and a sharp orange beak, was the Titan of Lightning and therefore normal weather patterns could be tossed out the meteorologist's drawing board.

He sped with the other vehicles toward a road that led to a hill some five miles away. Pokemon of all types were clogging the roads trying themselves to escape the resulting tempest. He was certain he had hit a few, until they finally understood the danger and moved off the roads.

Before long it was almost impossible to see for the driving rains, and he heard several vehicles smash into trees in the dense forest. Yet after several more harrowing minutes of driving, what was left of the fleeing caravan parked at a small pokemon center located high up on the hill.

They rushed inside and Eve asked the attending nurse if they had a room where she could change clothes. As the nurse showed her the way, the adult researchers flopped down on the numerous small couches dotting the floor of the center. It wasn't as big as the one in Viridian, but the furniture was cleverly arranged to maximize space. Instead of a large desk jutting out into the middle of the room, it was recessed into the wall and the reception area for the nurses was only a few feet across. The lobby and the operating rooms in the back were the only major worries in the architecture -- everything else was pared down or eliminated to save space.

A young woman with short brown hair appeared next to Spencer with a handful of towels. He graciously accepted one of them and began to dry off. She left to hand the others some towels and then disappeared again behind the doors leading to the operating rooms. When she finally returned to check on everyone, Spencer rose from his seat to introduce himself.

"Oh, I know, you're the archaeologist Spencer Hale," she noted before he could even say his name. "Nurse Joy told me there was a research team in the valley. So, as soon as word spread that Zapdos was threatening the area, we started making preparations since we figured you'd try to head here instead of Pallet. The roads that way can be awfully dangerous, especially in storms."

"And you are?"

She smiled warmly. "My name is Amelia. I'm originally from Fortune Island. Lazy trainers also call it Six Island."

" 'Fortune Island'?" Spencer asked, tilting his head in confusion. "That's not part of the Orange Islands, is it?"

She shook her head and glanced at ground in a sheepish expression. "We get a few trainers who confuse us with those islands. We're not affiliated with the Orange Islands at all. We are the Sevii Islands, for they were formed in seven days, but no one knows how. There are plenty of mysterious ruins you could check out, once you're done with the valley, of course," she offered, blushing slightly.

Spencer smiled, and patted her on the shoulder. "You must tell me where these ruins are. They sound fascinating. However, if you'll excuse me, I have to inform my wife of my location. She might be worried about me."

Amelia nodded and backed away. "Of course. Tell your crew that we don't have a lot to eat here -- there just wasn't enough time to prepare -- but you're welcome to stay as long as you want."

"Thank you," he said. "By the way, are you a nurse? I think I sprained my ankle running to my Jeep when the storm hit."

She laughed. "No, I'm not a nurse. I'm in Kanto on vacation. I was on my way back to the coast to leave for Cinnabar tomorrow."

"Oh? You won't leave via the port at Vermillion?"

"No," she replied. "I'm a tech assistant and I have some business in Cinnabar to attend to. You know, like wiring networks and stuff like that. There's a defossilization facility being set up on Cinnabar Island and I'm going to stop by for a quick consulting gig before I work my way back to Fortune Island. They have jobs opening up, you know. There's going to be a lot of major work on fossils going on there."

"Thanks, but I'm fine working with Saffron University," he told her with a warm smile. "Let's keep in touch though, since together we could probably find some nice ruins or something."

Amelia grinned from ear to ear. "Yes, that sounds lovely. I mean," she stopped, laughing nervously, "I mean that it would be nice to work with someone of your reputation. That's all."

As they parted ways, Spencer, still smiling from his encounter, walked over to a computer terminal and called Delia. She answered after a few rings. Her face seemed red and yet drained of life.

"Is something wrong, Delia?" he asked in a concerned voice. "I just wanted to call and tell you we escaped the storm's fury at Pokemopolis."

She nodded and stifled a sob. "That's good. I just wanted you to be safe, you know. I was worried about you. I wish you could come home. I really want to talk to you."

"Don't worry, unless the storm destroys our camp we should be exposing the temple entrance tomorrow."

"No," Delia said emphatically. "I want to talk to you _now_."

Spencer's gut wrenched. What could be so terrible? "What is it, then?"

She glanced away from the screen and then returned her gaze toward him in a submissive way. "I … I … I'm going to be a mother, Spencer." She started crying. "I'm sorry. I'm trying to control myself, but my head and my heart are confusing all my emotions. I'm happy we're going to have a child, but … but … I don't want to face that alone. I don't know what to do!"

Spencer sighed. "Call Professor Oak. He can look after you until I get home. This discovery will climax in a couple of days. Then I'll be home and we can plan this out together." He kissed his fingers and touched them to the screen. "I'll be home soon, Am … Delia. Just don't over-exert yourself until I get there."


	15. Delia and the Egg

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 2: HALESHIPPING  
Chapter 15: Delia and the Egg

Three months had passed since she confessed her pregnancy and Delia was uncomfortable, not only from the physical discomfort of adding about fifty pounds in the midsection but also the discomfort of knowing that her husband was far away.

Not physically, but emotionally.

Spencer had only agreed to come back to Pallet after the torrential rainfall spawned by Zapdos swept away much of the archaeology team's equipment and many artifacts. Worse still, a giant mudslide had buried what Spencer was certain was the entrance to the Pokemopolis temple, rumored to contain not only ancient pokemon storage facilities, but also a near-divine language that had the power to alter reality. It had taken weeks to prod answers from her husband and Delia was exhausted.

_Delia combed the brown mane of Spencer's mullet as he rested on a small hammock in the center of Professor Oak's ranch, singing gently, trying to hide her discomfort as her baby grew inside her. He smiled, completely relaxed -- for the moment. However, he soon frowned and Delia spoke softly to her husband._

"Sometimes it's best to let things remain hidden," she noted.

He scoffed, keeping his eyes closed as the warm summer sun radiated heat and light. "The temple was in my grasp, Delia. We were mere hours from discovery. Now," he paused, sighing, "all that progress is lost. Eve returned to her professor with the scant evidence we scavenged and I'm left with broken dreams."

"You don't find it a coincidence that Zapdos appeared in the area when your discovery seemed imminent?"

He glanced at her briefly in bemused disbelief and closed his eyes again, smiling as she continued to comb his hair. If he had been a Persian while under Delia's expert stimulation, he'd purr. "I don't … well, I don't think it's anything more than a coincidence. I can't imagine why a Titan would be angered by something that is irrelevant to such a powerful creature. I haven't been trying to research Zapdos or any other legendary pokemon. I just want … artifacts. Artifacts that permit us to see what we were in the past. Artifacts that give us a place in life. I want to be the Key that unlocks all of life's mysteries."

Delia didn't say anything for a few moments. How could she compete with that? If she had known … well, she didn't know how high-minded he was when she met him, and there was no use trying to change him now. After all, their marriage was more or less a rescue mission, and they both knew it. She had only turned to him because he was merely the supposed alternative to Giovanni's selfish and arrogant outbursts.

Delia sat down on a large tree stump in the middle of the Viridian forest, sweating from the extra weight she was carrying. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine that becoming a mother could be so tiring. And the child wasn't even here, yet. She started to cry. All she could think about was playing second fiddle to Spencer's dreams of academic stardom, all she could think about was caring for a child while her husband went on all kinds of adventures. Already he was famous for taking four days to trek across the Viridian forest, a trip that even on the longest trail only took ten hours. He wanted to explore every last facet of the forest, seek every corner. He wanted to know if there were any mysteries to behold.

Delia wanted him to focus on her, on their family, on anything besides the ruins of ancient people who weren't going to help raise a family. Every time she asked him to stay home and comfort her, he merely noted that she should stop acting like a child and grow a backbone, that modern women should be able to fend for themselves.

She didn't want to think about him, but she did. She couldn't help it, and her heart beat faster despite the pain he had caused. She realized that, in a way, Spencer was like an alternate-universe Giovanni. He wasn't cruel, but he was neglectful. He expressed his selfishness not by commanding a black-market gang of thugs, but by leaving her out of his plans. He loved, but with practicality, not with passion. They both wanted her to be self-sufficient, if only so that they wouldn't have to care for her themselves.

She hated it.

She hated being inconvenient.

"Are you quite alright, Miss?" a deep Southern drawl asked. She looked up and found a gentleman in an antique-styled suit with wavy dark blue hair and a goatee standing before her, carrying an pale yellow egg with brown stripes running horizontally on one side. She shook her head, no sense being dishonest when your face is red and puffy, now is there? He leaned back and shook his head. "I assume that some no-account has not the chivalry God gave a golduck to escort you to Viridian through this forest?" After being met with a blank stare, he sighed. "Let me put this another way then, Miss," he said. "Is there or is there not a man alive in this forest to help you while you suffer in this condition?" She shook her head. Sighing, he declared in an exasperated voice, "This is what I've been tellin' my dear sweet Jasmine about before my cell phone cut off in this here forest: the men in this region have no sense of decency and decorum. You are a lady expecting a wonderful gift to the world and no one is here to carry you to safety."

"I'm fine, really," Delia objected, although she blushed at being called a lady. "I can make it myself."

He waved her off dismissively. "No offense, Miss, but that is hardly the point of the matter. A true man protects his family with all the love his heart can give. That child will be your heir, your chance at living in immortality. Your child must be nurtured and cared for and guided into the ways of better livin' so that he or she can be an improvement on you, just like the way I treat my own boy."

"What is that egg for?" she asked, trying to change the subject.

He looked down at it briefly and shrugged, sighing. "A man over in Viridian City gave me this. I was here to pick up such an egg as I wanted a suitable pet for my son, but I have a strong feelin' that this egg is no good. I don't hardly feel no warmth from it at all. I have half a mind to toss this useless thing in the creek over yonder behind you. For all the money I spent to get it, I can tell you with the utmost honesty that I'm quite disappointed in that man's business practices, selling me this bum egg." He was just about to toss it away when it cracked and shattered, revealing a strange runt of a yellow pokemon that seemed to be a big-eared, shrunken deformed version of a pikachu. It quickly glanced at both the gentleman and Delia and began to snarl.

"PI … PICHU!" it yelled, its cheeks sparking, its fur standing on end. It charged for Delia, but the gentleman whipped out an ivory cane from seemingly nowhere and whacked it on the head.

"How dare you attack a woman in her condition?" he bellowed in an indignant voice.

"Stop it! You're scaring it!" Delia protested, rising to block any more of the gentleman's attacks.

The gentleman looked at her, baffled. "Young Miss, I declare you to be the most unbelievable feminine species ever created. It is attacking _you_! Why are you defending it? What if that ungrateful creature zaps you with electricity? How do you think that will affect your unborn child? You think a tiny baby can shrug off a thundershock attack with impunity?" He shoved her out of the way, although he did not knock her down. "I believe, Miss, that your womanly sentiments for this creature are getting in the way of the motherly sentiments you should be having for your child! If you aren't going to be careful in this encounter, then by my duty as a gentleman I shall even protect you from yourself!" With that, he continued to strike at the newly-hatched creature, yet he could not find his mark. The creature, who in the future would be identified in scientific annals as a pichu, or the pre-evolution of a pikachu, was remarkably adept at avoiding the cane strikes.

Finally, the little creature had had enough and leapt onto the gentleman's head and growled. Before the gentleman could knock it off, however, the young pokemon started sparking and sent a spark of electricity through the irritating male human. The close contact, combined with entry into the head, made the attack even more dangerous, sending the gentleman to the ground as if he had been struck by lightning. The baby jumped just as the man hit the ground, and snarled at Delia.

_Delia could never admit that she was afraid Spencer might leave her, even though she was pregnant. She was banking on the concept that his sense of duty would never allow him to abandon a child and his mother. As she combed her husband's hair on Professor Oak's ranch, she wondered if she could do anything to impress her husband so that he would stay. How could she take care of her child by herself?_

As she contemplated her situation, Delia continued to sing gently, matching the summer breeze that eased the heat of the season. Spencer had finally admitted to her his life dreams, and she noted with disappointment that none of them seemed to include having a family with her. And yet, she still needed him, whether he liked it or not. She just couldn't do it on her own.

She had tried nagging him, she had tried going over his head to Professor Oak, but she realized that she had become passive-aggressive like her mother. And that didn't last…

So, as painful as it might be, she decided she would support his dream, even if it meant he abandoned her later. She had gone through every intervention to save her marriage she could think of , save the one thing he seemed to want more than anything -- supporting his academic pursuits even as they took him away from her.

She smiled, in the way women do when they resign themselves to being beaten, the humble smile of the traditional woman. "I'm sorry your dig site was irretrievable," she told him softly. "I know it must have killed you to lose such an important find."

He opened his eyes in amazement and stared at her. She hadn't seen him look at her in such a loving way in a long time. "Yes, that's exactly how I feel! That's what I've been trying to tell you!" He held her hands in his. "I was beginning to think I could never make you understand…. My work … my work is the most important thing in my life! I need someone to support me in this. I can't … I just can't do it on my own. Such a big dream requires a lot of sacrifice and effort and discipline." He kissed her. "I've felt … bound … chained … encapsulated in a shell … and I couldn't find my way out. I was attracted to the purity of your heart from the first moment I met you. You inspired me to reach out to new dreams and break free from my shell and pursue all that life has to offer! And now, you finally understand how much this means to me -- to everyone in the world!" He tenderly caressed her face, kissing her once more. "Delia, I love you."

**Author's Note: Yes, the angry little pichu will grow up to be Ash's pikachu, so I don't want anyone confused or anything. The pichu serves as a metaphor for Spencer or Giovanni or any other relationship Delia has. If she can calm this furious pokemon down, she will make leaps and bounds toward becoming the tender caregiver we see she is now. Since pichus only evolve into pikachus when they're substantially happy and loved, this helps explain why it doesn't become a pikachu until maybe a few months before being captured by Professor Oak (and it doesn't help totally, or Pikachu wouldn't have been so mean to Ash in the beginning). So, Ash's Pikachu is about six months older than he is. It's also alluding to a rumor I've read on the internet where Pikachu escaped from Team Rocket's experiments before Oak caught him. The gentleman is James' father, in case you didn't notice. I liked the episode where James convinces an amnesiac Pikachu that he is Pikachu's best friend since childhood. This little part of my fic honors that by making it almost true, had not James' father considered the egg and then the baby pokemon substandard.**


	16. Dying to Protect You

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 2: HALESHIPPING  
Chapter 16: Dying to Protect You

The little newly-hatched yellow pokemon snarled at Delia. She was terrified. What if its electric attacks hurt her baby? Surely, no matter how angry the pokemon was, it wouldn't attack an obviously pregnant woman. And, considering the way the gentleman handled things, force wasn't going to work.

She tried to smile despite the tightness in her throat. Very slowly, she lowered herself (admittedly very awkwardly due to her large abdomen) and kneeled. She wrapped her arms protectively against her abdomen and bowed her head. She looked up briefly and saw the pichu standing there, suddenly silent and almost pensive, with its head tilted to the side to denote curiosity. Maintaining her humble posture was difficult, but it would be worth it if it meant protecting her unborn child.

"What a wonderful spark you have, little one," she said in a half-cheerful/half-submissive tone. "I'm sure you make your parents proud. I beg of you, little one -- please allow me to pass in this forest. I am going to have a baby and …."

"Pi … pichu!" it replied, its fur standing as its back arched defensively. Well, Delia thought, supplication isn't working all that great either. How can a newborn pokemon have such great distrust in humans?

Delia could see its leg muscles twitch as it anticipated its attack. She didn't know what this strange pokemon was, maybe it was from another region like Roll-On, her ralts, had been. She didn't have the slightest clue what its attacks might be, although she had figured out that it was an electric elemental. She contemplated giving up, just allowing this newborn creature to end it all for her and her child. After all, she mused, her marriage was almost lifeless anyway now. Yes, she had sacrificed herself to please her husband, just as she had almost done with Giovanni. If this creature could just cure her of her dependency, the world might be a better place.

As she started to whimper quietly, a tender children's melody spontaneously came into being from her head:

_The lightning makes sparks, Little One, Little One …  
The growlithe barks loudly, Little One, Little One …  
I wonder what new things will scare me today  
I can't think of how to make them go away  
I just want to feel close to the sun's warming rays …  
But I shiver at sandslash's quivers, Little One, Little One. _

The trees wail in the wind, Little One, Little One …  
The charizard burns them to cinders, Little One, Little One …  
My heart beats faster, faster until I'm in pain  
I feel soaking and lonely in the cold pouring rain  
I just want to be happy and safe once again…  
So let's shelter each other, my precious Little One.

She did not even look up as she finished her song. She didn't want to know whether or not music truly soothed the savage beast. All she knew was that she herself felt comforted by the song, and her heart slowed considerably for what seemed like an eternity.

A roar high above her made her yank her head up to scan the skies for danger. The familiar silhouette of a winged dragon against the bright yellow sun sent shivers down her already aching spine. The charizard was approaching at diving speed, aiming straight for the little yellow pokemon.

The little pichu saw the great winged beast coming at him. He quickly glanced at the female human with the round belly -- she was just as shocked as he was, so she couldn't have been the one responsible. Even so, he thought to himself, she and that male human only wanted to see him cooped up like that other male -- the one who had put him to sleep with something sharp and painful. The little pichu had then woken up to find himself trapped in what looked like an egg, but a foul chemical odor emanated from the shell. He could see cracks, very minute, and this foul-smelling stuff seemed to be sealing it, forming an egg-shaped prison.

Even though he was only a few days old, he knew that his egg days were over. He wanted to run and jump and attack and dodge -- not be forced to be curled up into a fetal position and left to rot. Yet, before he could attack with as much electricity as he could muster, the female human stood defiantly in front of him, facing the airborne enemy, holding out her arms as her voice betrayed her crying and pleading…

"Please STOP!" Delia begged loudly, staring at the incoming charizard. "You can't fly like that in a forest! The trees will rip your wings to shreds!"

As if in response, Professor Oak's charizard's mouth opened and a wide stream of fire shot forth, vaporizing the tops of the trees as it neared Delia and the little yellow pokemon. She wasn't sure, but she could swear she saw a confident smirk in the old lizard's face. Soon it landed just in front of her, its wings kicking up a gust of wind that didn't affect Delia as much as it affected the baby pokemon, its light weight making it victim to the strong winds, flinging it into a tree trunk nearby, stunning it momentarily. The charizard roared in triumph and nuzzled Delia's face with its nose. Despite his age, Charizard was the lookout, the protector, of everyone on his master's ranch -- including Delia. Oak had sent him to watch over her whenever she traveled, and he grudgingly admitted to himself that he had lost her temporarily in the thick Viridian forest canopy.

The little pichu shook his head to clear his mind of the fog brought on by smacking a tree trunk. He understood now that this large orange creature was protecting the human female -- a fact he did not appreciate. How could a pokemon protect such beings, he thought angrily to himself? They were cruel -- they didn't deserve the protection this fire-breathing creature gave her.

"Pi! Pi! Pi! Pichupi!" it snarled, its fur bristling, sparks crackling over its tiny frame.

The charizard returned a furious roar of his own. Delia was puzzled, but realized the two were arguing -- probably about her. However, she did not have time to think much about it as a bright white light dazzled both her and Charizard, blinding them. A sudden hot flash ensued as Delia was knocked back and to her left as a great force pounded her. Just before she hit the ground, she heard a tremendous crack followed by an even greater one, which preceded a long groan as wood splintered. Even though she couldn't see, her heart went cold as she realized what was happening -- that the newborn creature had used a powerful electric attack to blind them and shatter a tree behind them. The groan intensified and then Delia was shaken to her very core as a thunderous thud sound generated right in front of her. She tried to reach in front of her, scanning the area with her arms as her eyes could not see, and she was petrified to find leathery wings underneath the hot, splintered trunk of the tree shattered by a pokemon she could no longer hear.


	17. Student and Teacher

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 2: HALESHIPPING  
Chapter 17: Student and Teacher

Spencer inspected the titles of all the books in Professor Oak's library, which took up two floors in the newest addition to his house, which was now called a Lab by everyone in Pallet. People tended to forget that Oak actually lived there. He turned when he heard footsteps.

Smiling, Spencer said to Professor Oak, "You have a wonderful art and biology collection here, Professor."

Professor Samuel Oak, Primary Kanto League Scientist, smiled. His graying hair was testament to the long days he worked studying his pokemon at the ranch at all hours of the day. "Yes, art and science belong together. You can't have fact without a little emotion. The heart sometimes sees what the head does not." He was carrying a large box of loose paper and set it down next to a white computer desk against the north wall of the room. He sighed in relief and rubbed his back, smiling. "This would be hard work even if it were a box of pidgey feathers, unfortunately," he noted, laughing. "It's like the paper actually absorbs the weight of the studies printed on them."

Spencer returned the smile. "How is your study of avian biology coming? I'm surprised I haven't seen a new article from you in a month or so."

Professor Oak sighed and walked across the room to a small blue couch, where he propped his feet up on a dark mahogany coffee table and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "Well, the study is on hold for now, I'm afraid," he said wistfully. "I've been going through some of my old notebooks and I've found inspiration to start a project on grass pokemon." He smiled, as though reliving important childhood memories. "I want to study the water quality grass pokemon require, whether water quality actually affects the temperament and attack scheme of certain species." He continued to smile gently as he glanced up at Spencer, who sat down on the couch beside him. "How's Delia?"

Spencer cleared his throat. "She's been traumatized for the last several days. From what I can get out of her incoherent cries is that a baby pokemon attacked, one with incredible power, and she was terrified for her life." He stared intently at Professor Oak. "How are you handling the loss of Charizard? You two have always been together."

Oak sighed. "Well, he has been with me a long time, ever since I was eight or nine, I think, when he was a charmander. I remember finding him on a rocky cliff, climbing up to get at a small rock nest filled with pokemon eggs. Apparently he offered some pokemon a symbiotic relationship, he would heat and protect the eggs and get a meal from the parents when they returned from hunting. I always admired his need to protect the vulnerable. I grew up trying to emulate that as best I could. Still, he was probably around forty-five years old when …" he paused to wipe a tear from his eyes. He tried hard to not let it get to him, Spencer realized, but the fact was the loss was a dark and heavy blow. He shook his head finally to clear the memory of retrieving his dear friend's body. "Well, my friend left this world doing what he did best, protecting his young charges. He was true to himself to the very end -- I hope my family can say as much when it's my time to go."

"You're not that old yet, Professor," Spencer objected, discomforted by the thought.

"Neither was charizard," the professor replied. "From what I understand, reptilian pokemon, especially dragon or dragon-related pokemon, can live up to a couple hundred years if they're physically fit enough." He turned, his smile waning, becoming a frown. "You never answered my question about Delia -- you just brushed it off."

Spencer looked at his teacher as though the mentor had crawled up out of the sewers. "I _did_ tell you about her, Professor Oak. She's upset."

"You're being flippant," Oak protested in a condemning voice. "You know very well what I meant."

Spencer bowed his head low, not only out of respect to his teacher but also to hide his scowl. "I respectfully submit that our marriage is our business."

"Spencer," Professor Oak began solemnly, "I have always cared about all my students, just as I care about the pokemon who live here. Delia has been traumatized -- your word, I might add -- and she's with child _and_ you're here discussing biology studies with me instead of comforting her. I'm just trying to guide you so you can learn about priorities. You two seemed to hold such promise and you're, quite frankly, treating her with casual disrespect. I just don't want your marriage to end up like my son's," he noted, bringing his voice down to almost a whisper. "… Or, if I must be honest, mine."

Spencer batted his eyes in disbelief. "You have a son?"

"Don't change the subject, but yes, I have children, a son and a daughter, although by different mothers. My son was from my first relationship. My wife had become a glory seeker and nothing I ever did was good enough for her. I became a hindrance to her fame, in her eyes. I see the same thing in you and it would break my heart to see you two break up because you can't give her the proper attention. She almost kisses your feet every day and you repay her love with sparse emails and phone conversations. It's more than what my son did with his wife, but I've just learned that my daughter-in-law is expecting and she's threatening to take the child to Hoenn, far from my son's eyes. Their divorce is getting ugly and I don't want the same to befall you. You've heard my opinion, now what's yours?"

Spencer thought carefully for the moment, glancing up at the ceiling. After several minutes, he sighed. "I've met someone who appreciates my work, Professor. I'm like a rock-star in her eyes."

"Amelia?"

Spencer shot up and stood, his face suddenly pale. "How … how did you know that?"

Professor Oak shook his head and pointed at the computer on the other side of the room. "She's been emailing me for weeks, trying to set up meetings with you. She seems to think you spend a lot of time here when you're not in the field. I surmised the situation when her subject lines got more and more … suggestive. I didn't say anything because I was afraid Delia might discover them. I just deleted them from my hard drive. I called you over here finally because I don't like the idea of Delia being strung along by someone who no longer loves her. If you abandon an expectant mother of your children, needless to say, I'll be very disappointed in you, Spencer."

Spencer growled to himself, gritting his teeth. "Do you still talk with your ex-wife? Or your son? I don't see you going to children's birthday parties yourself, sir."

Professor Oak stood, frowning, his face tightening in ever-growing anger. "I maintain contact with my elusive son. _He_ does not like talking with _me_, I'll have you know. The only way I can get him to stay on the phone for longer than five minutes is if we discuss pokemon science or business ventures." He paused to give what he was going to say next added weight. "He only cares for his work, Spencer. Not his mother, not me, not his wife, and probably not his child -- he cares only for himself. You would do well to learn from someone with experience that losing one's family is the most painful thing you could ever do."


	18. Papers

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 2: HALESHIPPING  
Chapter 18: Papers

**The following sequence refers to Star Wars, owned by George Lucas, not by me. It also references Pokemon 3 (and maybe 4), owned by Nintendo, not by me.**

_Spencer winced as the sweltering heat cracked open his skin here and there and soon nearly all over his body. His tongue was parched and stuck sometimes on the roof of his mouth. He couldn't tell if the wavy nature of reality was from the invisible waves of heat rising from the surface of the volcano or his own waffling when it came to discussing his problems with his family._

He was going to have a child, one who could carry on his family's legacy. He or his child would discover the key to the universe -- no other goal was important. That's why she couldn't understand, he thought to himself bitterly. She had no vision. She was content to be the little woman she was, never questioning the big questions, never rocking the boat or stirring the pot and seeing what happened next. He, on the other hand, had drive … had initiative -- he wasn't content to just sit by and watch the universe roll on with or without him. He had to be an integral part of the system. If he ever decided he wasn't -- well, why would he even a reason to be alive at all?

Out of the glowing volcano, the redness of the lava enveloping his very being, a large winged reptilian creature swept up mercilessly, glaring at him with cruel yellow eyes. He could not grasp the shape completely, so he had no idea if this were pokemon or true monster. He would not allow the thing, whatever it was, to identify itself one way or the other. This creature that could very well, had circumstances permitted, be friendly and kind and warm to him -- but he knew the murderous intentions that he saw.

He picked up a piece of still-warm black lava rock and held it up to the great violent beast, who was intent on ripping him limb from limb. As he held it, it glowed and an aura of lava surrounded him, turning into a sphere of fire that he subsequently hurled at the roaring monster, certain it would tear the vile thing to pieces. Yet its spirit was undeterred. It roared even more ferociously, beating its fiery wings with greater intensity.

Rather than be intimidated, Spencer relished the opportunity to prove himself worthy of being the Key. He concentrated hard on the lava rock until it glowed once more, into a white-hot ball of light, so bright it would blind those even a few miles away. The extreme heat exploded the rock, shooting it straight toward the neck of the great dragon, which roared only briefly, this time in pain, as it fell limp below the waves of simmering lava.

As he triumphantly walked down the volcano, his skin nurtured by the damp rain clouds that had appeared to cool his blistering thirst, he met Professor Oak, the ever-watchful and ever-nosy teacher in the white lab coat. He bragged to his professor about his deed, his defeat of the one true impediment to becoming the Key.

The professor, however, bowed his head in sorrowful prayer, holding a rose in his hand. Without looking up, he said mournfully, "Don't speak that way about your son."

Spencer awoke, sans his pajama top, his bare chest drenched in sweat even though he discovered he had kicked the covers off his bed at some point that night. What in God's name had that been about, he wondered. Yet he did not want to awaken the lovely brunette beside him, although already he could hear her turning in her sleep. Was she plagued by nightmares such as this? Surely he wasn't the only one to suffer such nightly hauntings. He placed his hand on the nightstand beside him to regain his sense of place. He had just returned from a long dig the night before, he remembered. He and Delia had argued for weeks about the relative importance of his finds. She, naturally, considered his being there more important. He, on the other hand, knew that she wouldn't really need him until late in this her last trimester, so she could wait until he had uncovered the secrets he had been searching for.

And, after a brief time debating this with himself, he decided he must go home.

He realized with a surprise the sensation of a stack of papers underneath his hand. He turned to look at them, and although the lamp was turned off he knew instinctively what they were.

When Amelia awoke at dawn, he thought to himself, he'd kiss her on the cheek and board a bus to Pallet and deliver the divorce papers himself.

After all, he was not a coward. Only a coward would get a lawyer or sheriff to give the summons, perhaps at two o'clock in the morning when the victim would be too dazed from sleep to comprehend fully the extent of the matter.

He would not run from his responsibilities to himself or his future…

He would deliver them himself.

**This is the end of Haleshipping.**


	19. Visitation

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 3: ASH  
Chapter 19: Visitation

**Author's Note: "To Care for Him" also refers to Delia's relationship with Ash, not just her romantic liaisons, so this act serves as a bridge between Haleshipping and Eldershipping. This will be a short act, simply because I'm starting it off with Ash at age five and Eldershipping will start in just a few short years. This act will also update Delia's relationships with her past two lovers, Giovanni and Spencer, as well as further her attempts to placate the hostile pichu running around Viridian Forest. I'm still going to leave the identity of Ash's father up for grabs, because the anime still hasn't made up its mind one way or the other. Also, this act will be different in that it takes place solely from Delia's point of view -- simply 'cause I don't know how to write a five-year-old's perspective. Hey, at least I'm honest, right?**

The little brunette girl wailed as loud as an ambulance siren. She had run to Delia, which surprised the mother of the future pokemon hero. Delia tried to wipe away the girl's tears, but the child kept on screaming at the top of her lungs. Try as she might, she couldn't get the young girl to calm down long enough to tell her what happened, although she already suspected Ash was involved. The three-year-old girl screamed whenever she didn't get her way, as far as Delia knew. Inwardly, Delia admitted to herself that although she still had a lot to learn about parenting, she at least knew that catering to a spoiled child was harmful to her future.

At last, after fifteen minutes of nonstop wailing, a cheerful child of five ran over to Delia as she dusted herself off from landing in a sand pit in front of the long slide at the National Park in Johto. The girl seemed to like Ash and always played with him, despite the fact that she rarely got to see her friend. She, like the screaming child in front of her, lived in Johto, although she lived near the Kanto border along Victory Road, the path pokemon trainers took to go north to the Pokemon League situated atop Indigo Plateau.

Delia, her nerves weary from the high-pitched screaming, looked up and saw the older girl in her yellow sundress that Easter morning. She was rather shocked to see her with sea-green instead of blonde hair, which cascaded down her shoulders. Despite her surprise, she managed to say, "Amber, do you know why Molly's crying?"

Amber nodded. "Uh-huh, Missus Ketzum," she said. "Ash said he found a cool pokemon and asked Molly an' me to go see it. Ash is a liar, Missus Ketzum. He pulled out a plastic ekans an' threw it on Molly and hissed like an ekans and it scared Molly and she started crying."

"Oh dear," Delia replied. "Where is Ash now?"

"Ekans!" Molly shouted, interrupting.

Delia patted the still-crying child on the head. "Yes, yes -- I know. Even though it wasn't real, it wasn't nice of Ash to do that to you. I'll make sure he gets punished for it."

Amber pointed to the edge of the park, where a giant hole in the fence had been created just a week ago when a pokemon rampaged into the park. Delia could just barely see Ash tossing and turning on the ground, laughing.

Delia took Molly by the hand and walked several yards to where Ash was laughing, holding up the plastic ekans and pretending to be a shivering Molly. "Ash! Apologize to Molly this instant!"

Ash dropped the toy and gawked at his mother in shock. "I didn't do anything! She's a liar!"

"Nuh-uh, Ash!" Amber retorted, pointing at him in accusation. "You're the liar! I saw you throw that ekans to Molly! You're just being mean!"

Ash growled at Amber. "You keep outta this! No tattle-tales!"

"Just 'cause she's younger dan you doesn't mean you can be mean to her, Ash!" Amber yelled in reply.

"Who taught you playing mean tricks was okay?" Delia asked him sternly.

Ash rubbed his nose and looked to the ground, shuffling his feet. "It was Gary's idea," he said reluctantly.

"Ash, Gary is at home in Pallet. Don't blame him for something you did."

Ash looked up defiantly. "It _was_ Gary's idea. He did that to me yesterday and we both thought it was funny! He said I should try it on Molly when we went to her house!"

Delia sighed and shook her head. "It's not funny, Ash. Other people don't share your sense of humor. And we both know Gary likes to make you in trouble. You remember what he did last week, don't you? Weren't you angry at him for pulling that prank on you?"

"Yeah, but …"

"No," Delia told him, wagging her finger, "don't say 'Yeah, but …'. Apologize to Molly right now."

"No!" Ash replied angrily, stomping his foot on the ground. "I'm not her brother or anything!"

Molly started to sniffle and pout. Delia held her close to try to comfort her. "Ash Ketchum! How dare you! If you don't apologize right now, I'll take your video games away when we get home."

Ash snorted defiantly. "Good! Gary comes up with better games anyway!"

"Is everything alright here?" a deep male voice asked from behind. Delia turned to find Spencer, still wearing that awful brown mullet hairstyle, standing next to an older man, a few years older than Professor Oak even, with solid gray hair and a pointed goatee.

Delia fought the urge to yell at Spencer for leaving the park to go talk to colleagues, but she held her tongue. Instead, she took a deep breath and nodded toward Molly. "Ash pulled a prank on Molly and scared her. I'm taking care of it. Just …" and she realized too late that she couldn't hold back her criticism of her ex-husband, "… go back to your academic lecturing and let me handle the kids."

She could see for a brief instant a scowl on Spencer's face, but she didn't care. Every other month she took the trip to Johto so that Ash could visit with his father, while in the other months Spencer came to Pallet. Yet in nearly all instances, he would leave early or talk on his cell throughout -- giving his son only cursory attention. And what was worse, he would have the audacity to criticize her parenting techniques! The only reasons she still agreed to these visitations, if one could call them that, were that Molly had learned to be friends with Ash and that she felt genuinely sorry for the child that surely must feel as abandoned as Ash did sometimes, to the point of waking in the middle of the night with questions about what he did to make his father not want to see him. Spencer never saw those parts of Ash's life. Like always, he only saw what he wanted to see.

The other man, meanwhile, blushed and coughed nervously. "Amber, let's go."

"But Daddy!" she whined. "I'm not done playing with Ash yet!"

"Yes you are. Ash needs to talk to his parents in private. We can visit them again later. I'll buy you an ice cream on the way home." He nodded to Spencer. "You can finish your story later. This is more important. Good-bye." With that, they left the arguing ex-couple to themselves.


	20. Shocking Waters

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 3: ASH  
Chapter 20: Shocking Waters

A cold front was coming in that afternoon, a dark line of thunderstorms advancing toward Pallet Town. The winds were picking up within the Viridian Forest, the branches swaying violently to the point of breaking, a howling sound reverberating throughout the whole area, as if a group of Lapras, sea-going blue pokemon which resembled somewhat cuter versions of the Loch Ness Monster, wailed their sad Perish Song, dooming everyone within earshot to unconsciousness and possibly death. Scores of bird and bug pokemon were leaving the forest in droves, a veritable exodus of pokemon. Pokemon could sense severe changes in the weather and they always tried to avoid such phenomena. A beedrill, a large yellow-jacket-looking pokemon with drill-shaped front limbs, flew haphazardly through the gusts but could not stay aloft and crashed near a small lake deep within the forest. He had fallen on something soft, sparing his insect wings from too much damage, and so he turned to see what he had landed on.

A brunette woman lay face down on the ground on the shore of the lake, her skin pale and lightning-shaped marks zigzagged across it. Her outer coverings were soaking yet there was the distinct smell of electric burns. He poked the human female once or twice with his drill-shaped limbs, then shrugged and walked awkwardly away, certain that flying meant certain doom.

As Delia finally awoke as cold rain started to pelt her, she groaned in pain as she realized her body felt like it was burning in several spots. She felt tingly and numb and yet also on fire and extremely cold. Every body part ached as though she had been injected with some type of acidic substance that threatened to destroy every nerve in her body.

How long had she been there, she wondered to herself. The clouds prevented her from seeing the sun and the darkness soon grew worse, almost to the point where day seemed like a moonless night. She even had trouble remembering why she was there.

"Hey!" a young voice yelled out from deep within the forest. Delia turned in the direction of the voice and saw a teenager pop out of some shrubs a few yards away. Her hair was sunny blonde, visible even in this low light. However, she must be wearing some pretty dark clothing, Delia surmised, because in the darkness everything but her head seemed to be hidden in shadow. The female shined a flashlight in Delia's face, which caused her an extreme headache. Shutting off the flashlight, the young teenage woman walked quickly up to the barely-sitting victim. "Can you walk?" she said curtly. Delia shook her head. The teen sighed in exasperation. "Great. My luck. You do know it's suicidal to be in a forest during a major thunderstorm, right?" No answer. "Well, I'm here to locate and acquire you since no one seems to know where you are." She studied Delia's injuries. "Were you struck by lightning?"

Delia chuckled weakly. "I … I don't know. I can't remember how I got here. Everything is just a dark blur in my mind."

"That would be symptomatic, I guess," the teenager reasoned out loud. "Obviously your system was fried. No doubts there. I've got an emergency beacon. Help will arrive within minutes. If he thinks I'm going to carry you through a God-forsaken forest, he's crazy. I'm strong but I don't do miracles. No offense, lady."

Delia looked up at her and smiled. "You're compassion … is … overwhelming," she said in a quiet but sarcastic voice.

The girl shrugged, flicking her curly blonde locks away from her face as the rain started to pour. "I'm not interested in compassion, lady. I follow orders." Now that she was standing so close to Delia, Delia could see the teenager was wearing a black long-sleeved sweater, reinforced with Kevlar, and black pants with short black boots. Her belt was red and held not poke balls but small pockets. A large red R emblazoned the front of the sweater.

Delia felt as though she were going to throw up, from both the electrocution that she couldn't remember and the realization who had ordered her rescue.

A couple of hours later she sat on the couch at Professor Oak's lab, across from several large bookshelves. The teenager had changed shirts in the car that arrived in the forest to rescue them, and she now wore a simple short-sleeved white blouse although she still had on the pants and boots from before. She was casually using a hair dryer as she sat near the computer desk nearby, completely oblivious to the others around her. Delia, meanwhile, was sipping some tea brought to her by one of Professor Oak's assistants, Serge. He had dark hair and black-rimmed glasses and wore the traditional white lab coat. He had been dutifully explaining the wondrous benefits of certain tea blends as Delia sat dazed on the couch.

"Serge?" Professor Oak asked as he walked into the library from the basement staircase. "Why don't you let me take over for awhile and you can get back to searching for Aquascale."

Delia looked up. "Aquascale?"

Professor Oak nodded. "A blastoise I use for breeding purposes here at the ranch. She has a fine pedigree and her squirtles are well-suited for battling." He sat beside her on the couch, glancing at her soaked clothes with charred spots on them. "Are you okay?"

Delia sat for a few moments without answering. Suddenly, she remembered -- "Ash! Where is he? Is he okay?"

"Yes," Professor Oak noted as he tried to soothe her with his voice. "Ash and Gary are playing with some toys upstairs. I don't think they're quite ready yet to handle pokemon." He chuckled.

"Pokemon?" Delia wondered.

Professor Oak's grin vanished. "You don't remember?"

Delia shook her head. "The last thing I remember is taking Ash to the National Park to play with Molly." She scowled. "Well, he was supposed to visit with Spencer, but Spencer continues to think meeting with colleagues is more important. Ash was being the typical five-year-old prankster, tossing a plastic ekans to poor Molly. She screamed and I tried to make Ash apologize but he just wouldn't. He said it was Gary's idea."

She noticed Professor Oak glancing first at the blonde-headed teenager, who seemed surprised at Delia's story, and then at Serge, who cleared his throat and nodded toward the basement staircase, announcing quietly that he would go and try to link up with Aquascale's transmitter. Professor Oak cleared his throat and glanced once more at the young woman, who got the silent hint and left the room, smiling. He said in a very low voice, "Delia, when did this visitation happen?"

Delia shrugged slightly, the pain in her body refusing to release her. "Yesterday?"

Professor Oak sighed. "Have you spoken to Ash recently in the forest?"

"No, I don't know where he is." She paused. "Wait, you said he was upstairs now, right?"

Oak nodded. "Delia. Whatever happened to you caused you to dream or to hallucinate."

Delia frowned. "How could you say that? I was there, Professor!"

"Delia, try to think about it carefully: Ash had been five-years-old for six months before Molly was even born. She only just now turned three this year. Ash is eight now. Spencer was over here at the lab with Molly and Amelia a week ago. We took Ash and Molly to go see the pokemon in the ranch, remember? What you saw couldn't have been real." He placed his hand gingerly on her shoulder. "What do you remember about being in Viridian Forest?"

"Nothing!"

"Shh," he reprimanded. "Ash might hear you. A child might not accept such profound memory loss," he advised in hush tones. "Don't you remember Ash and Gary fighting over one of Aquascale's little squirtles? One of the little ones got scared over their arguing and ran out of the lab, with both of them in hot pursuit. You don't remember? We chased after them …"

Delia shook her head, tears starting to well up in her eyes. "It seemed so real …" she said finally in a child-like voice.

"I know," Oak told her, sighing. "After an hour of running after the fastest boys in Pallet, we lost them in the forest. I sent Aquascale to go find them, since her ability to recognize her progeny by smell would be useful. She was also extremely powerful and could easily defend both her little squirtle and the children if need be. That was several hours ago. There was a large electric spark that came out of the sky just before the rains came -- and I realized you and I had gotten separated. I put out an alert for everyone in the area to come looking for you, and finally received word from Giovanni that one of his part-timers had located you and that you were badly injured. I kept Gary and Ash upstairs so they wouldn't see you in this condition. I wanted to make sure you were okay before I let them in on what happened."

A look of confusion washed over Delia's face. "Why would Giovanni rescue me?" She laughed nervously to herself. "I mean, I can't stand the thought of being near him!"

Professor Oak smiled tenderly. "He was concerned about the missing children, actually. When Gary and Ash exited the forest on their own, having bored themselves with chasing after the little squirtle, I told him you were missing and there had been some sort of electrical event deep within the forest. He promised to send someone to 'fetch' you, but he told me that you would think it inappropriate for him to find you personally. That's why he sent that young woman. He thought you'd trust a strange teenage woman over him," he told her, not capable of holding back a brief chuckle.

For several moments, Delia stared ahead at nothing in particular. She was trying to rack her brains of anything that could help her remember what happened in the forest. Suddenly the lab assistant Serge came running from the basement, proudly announcing that Aquascale had returned to the ranch with the little squirtle and that she had appeared to understand that the children had already been found. The little squirtle then followed the assistant into the library, some electric burn marks visible on its turtle shell.

Delia gasped.

_Delia had been screaming for Ash and Gary and even the little squirtle for half an hour before she finally found the squirtle deep within the forest. She chased it to the shore of the little lake nearby and hoped that Ash and Gary would appear as well. When they didn't, she started to panic, her heart racing. They heard a rustling noise in the brush nearby, but it was caused by something far too small to be the children. A yellow mouse-shaped pokemon, the pichu Delia had seen on occasion in the forest, hopped out and yelped out in surprise at the sight of the human and the squirtle. Sparks crackled in its rosy cheeks, but the squirtle, using its own language, threatened the intruding pokemon. Delia helped care for the pokemon at Professor Oak's ranch, and Delia had always been friendly to the little one, even if she didn't always stop her own offspring from teasing the pokemon residents._

The pichu confidently beckoned for the water pokemon to approach, certain it would prevail. As the squirtle launched forward to tackle the intruder, a spark of electricity shot forward and threw the turtle-like blue pokemon into the lake. The squirtle reappeared on the surface, shaking its head to get rid of its dizziness and headache, and glared at his opponent. The pichu charged up, its cheeks glowing and crackling with electricity, for this pokemon did not believe in going easy on the opponents it faced, since it had been proven time and time again that humans and pokemon alike were incredibly stubborn when it came to bothering this pokemon who only wanted to be left alone. Delia gasped when she realized the pichu intended to light up the entire lake with the squirtle in it, possibly killing it. Still gripped with the image of the fallen charizard of Professor Oak's, she couldn't let this continue. She threw herself in between the two warring pokemon just as the pichu unleashed a powerful shockwave. Just before it struck her, however, a wave of water came crashing in front of her and rushing toward the pichu. The wall of water carried the electric current with it and succeeded in both drenching and electrocuting the tiny angry pokemon.

Yet Delia, having been near the wall of water, took some of the electricity anyway and fell to the ground, unconscious.

**Author's Note: Whoops. I realized that the previous chapter could not have happened, assuming that Ash appears to be about five or six years older than Molly. So, I fixed it. There's only one or two chapters of this act left, then Eldershipping can begin.**


	21. The Funeral

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 3: ASH  
Chapter 21: The Funeral

Delia stood in her small kitchen, coring her freshly-grown tomatoes to place them in a blender. She gathered some spices and set everything neatly on the counter, as Spencer had taught her to do … back when he was part of the family. For a week she had been building a small makeshift shrine in a hidden spot deep within Viridian Forest. Apples seemed to attract rattata, little gray rodent pokemon, while berries attracted bird pokemon. It was only after she spotted teeth marks on her tomatoes in her garden and the footprints that led back to the forest did she realize how to placate the angry pokemon that haunted the forest.

She didn't mind wearing a frail white apron, one that had belonged to her mother, as she prepared a bottle of homemade ketchup, over her black dress. She hadn't yet decided on what to tell Ash. As she prepared the condiment, she was reminded of a few weeks back when Professor Oak met her in her garden as she tended the tomatoes:

_He had been checking up on her for a few months now, making sure the electric attack had done no permanent damage. The squirtle who had run away had pantomimed what happened: his opponent had tried to shock him, so in order to protect himself and Delia, he launched surf, a mighty tidal wave from the lake behind her. However, when they were all still injured, he and his opponent staggered around until they finally noticed the human was not getting back up. The squirtle intended to attack the opponent for making this happen, but paused when the creature timidly poked at the still body. It ran off, whimpering. The squirtle then ran off as well, to find its momma._

He handed her her mail as she weeded the garden. "Mrs. Ketchum?" he asked in a bemused tone. She looked up, shocked that he would call her something so formal after the years they had known each other. He continued, his smile fading, "Nobody you know goes by that name. Why did you change it?"

"I'm no longer married to Spencer, Professor," she noted, looking back to the tomatoes, trying to avoid his gaze. "I don't want to be Mrs. Hale the First or something like that. I took your advice. You told me years ago that I need to stop acting like I belong to others. So I gave us both a new name." She smirked, although he couldn't see it. "Don't you like it?"

He cleared his throat and paused several moments before he answered. "It's just that …" he finally noted, but found he could not find the strength to continue the sentence. "Well, never mind. If that makes you happy, that's all that's important."

The funeral would be in two hours. She wondered why Professor Oak had seemed so spooked with the knowledge that Delia had changed hers and Ash's name to Ketchum. Still, she shrugged it off. Gary and Ash would arrive shortly with Professor Oak, all dressed in black.

She wondered how to tell an eight-year-old boy about death.

She hurried to the shrine she had hidden in the woods and placed a ribbon from her ponytail and a small white bowl of homemade ketchup inside the little wooden shrine, which stood no taller than her knees. She bowed her head reverently and then returned to her house, awaiting her son.

When the children arrived with Professor Oak, who wore a black suit instead of the usual red shirt, khakis and white lab coat, they were downcast and somber. One look from the Professor told her that he had been discussing what they were going to see and that it would be best to leave for Viridian for the funeral.

When they arrived in the open-air chapel located in a meadow to the west of Viridian, they found a few strangers and friends of the Oak family, as well as the scholar Delia recognized from her days with Spencer, who also happened to be there. The man, the father of the young girl named Amber, was sobbing on the arms of Spencer, who patted his back in sympathy.

Awkward, Delia could not help but think as she stepped forward to the simple pews behind the steel casket, which was closed.

She felt it especially so when she spotted Giovanni, his head bowed in humility, in the first row. The person in the casket had died in a car accident -- the gas tank had exploded somehow as it drove away from the grocery store. Delia could not believe that both Giovanni and Spencer could care about someone deeply enough to seem downcast at one's funeral.

As Professor Oak reached Spencer and, Delia later learned, his colleague Dr. Fuji, the one with the solid white goatee, she saw him ask Dr. Fuji something tenderly. Fuji nodded as he cried, and Delia could just barely make out that he told Oak that he could bear both tragedies today and not to worry about him.

As the service started, the male priest somber in voice and robes, Delia bowed her head as she held on to Ash's small frame:

_Those who suffer will do so only temporarily. Regardless of the backgrounds of the people here today, we should all agree that, one way or another, suffering in life is always temporary. May we be comforted by this thought, and wish this woman a peaceful journey and destination. Ms. Oak, as she was known by some here in Viridian, is survived by her former husband, Giovanni Oak, and her son, Gary. May the police find justice if this is done by the hand of man, and may Ms. Oak find peace and solace if her departure from this world was natural and destined…._


	22. Princess Molly

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 3: ASH  
Chapter 22: Princess Molly

**Author's Note: The fairy tale mentioned in this chapter is from a friend of mine, Serge, but since this isn't some kind of NC-17 fic I'll arrange it so it reads more like a fairy tale, but really, folks, do you read Grimm's fairy tales? Not for the faint of heart…**

One cold winter night, Delia lay on the couch, watching television with Ash as he sat on the floor in front of her, his spiky black hair sometimes interrupting her view. They were watching a Pokemon League tournament, a yearly ratings sweeps bonanza that always ensured the broadcasters filled their coffers back up to the brim. During a commercial, Ash, holding a plush poke ball in his hand (which contained a plush squirtle), looked up at his mother, who seemed to him like she was the goddess Hera, if he knew of such things -- although in his eyes she was the ultimate ruler of his universe.

"Mom?" he asked, his voice wavering and hushed because he knew this question might upset his mother. "Can Molly and I play a game tomorrow?"

Delia frowned before she could stop it. She smiled quickly to recover, but she could tell from her son's face that he was disappointed already. "I … I'm sorry, Ash -- I was still tired from all the housework this morning. What kind of game do you want to play? I hope you're not going to tease her again. It's important that you be nice to our company, you understand?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Molly found this book and we want to turn it into a play for our friends in Pallet."

"What kind of book?" Delia asked, suddenly aware that maybe her son, barely nine-and-a-half, was turning into some kind of scholar.

"A fairy tale by some guy named Serge," he replied. "It's about a boy and a girl and the boy finds out the girl is actually a princess but an evil witch doesn't want people to know about that so she lies to the girl to make her stop believing she's a princess and then the boy sets out to kill the witch." He started beaming as he began to describe some more violent acts of the story.

Boys, Delia thought to herself.

"Ash, do you remember what happened last year?"

Ash sat there, his face still and slightly puzzled. Finally, he shrugged.

"Do you remember your friend Gary's mother passing away and Amber too?" she asked him, even though she didn't want to upset the boy. She had had to let him sleep in her bed for weeks afterward because he was having nightmares, but after his initial mourning he seemed to forget all about it. Still, she was surprised when he looked down at the floor first and then nodded. "Well, is that why you and Molly are going to do this play? Because you're upset? If it is, it's alright to talk about it, too."

Ash sighed and rolled his eyes and turned back to the television. "Gaaawwwwsssshhhh, Mom … I'm not a little kid, y'know. I can take lots of bad news. I'm not a crybaby. Gary and I want to be in it 'cause there's lots of fighting and rescuing. We can be heroes. Some stupid gloomy funeral doesn't bother us. Get a life, Mom." He started bouncing on the floor as he became more animated with the thought of acting in this play. "Besides, Professor Oak's gonna let us borrow some pokemon and they're going to be in the play too. It's going to be so cool, we should charge people to show up and Gary and I can be rich too, like Molly is!"

"What makes you think she's rich?"

Ash glanced at her like she didn't know the sky was blue. "Jeez, Mom … she lives in a super-huge house with a gazillion rooms and has servants and everything. Her dad must have money in his bedroom that reaches to his ceiling." He thought for a moment before adding with a playful grin, "Or maybe his house is made of money that they just painted over. That'd be cool!"

Delia lay back on the couch, stunned by Ash's choice of words to describe … _Molly's_ father. _Molly's_ father? "Ash," she managed to say at last, "what do you think of your … of Molly's father? Do you remember seeing him when you were younger?"

Ash shrugged and pulled on the bottom of his yellow pajama top, stretching it over his ever-growing legs. "A little, I guess. Molly's dad lives in Greenfield and he's a scientist like Professor Oak but he doesn't let you play around like Professor Oak does. He actually kinda sucks. I can see why Molly likes coming over here better. Professor Oak is more fun."

Delia sat up, straightening her pink cotton nightgown, and bent over to hug her only son, who struggled to get out of her embarrassing embrace.

She was deeply saddened, but she was also very happy …

… that he didn't see her crying silently.

The next morning Delia went outside to the snow-covered ground in her backyard and spotted Gary, whose dark red hair seemed to match the dark blue shirt and blue jeans he wore, Ash, wearing his favorite orange-and-white striped shirt and blue jean shorts, and Molly, the youngest, with her light-blue jumper and a picture of a lapras on the front. The air was quite warm since the cold front had moved through and the snow was beginning to melt in the sunlight. The boys were telling Molly about the play, barely masking their frustration that she seemed too young to understand what was going on … and what "pretend" meant.

Gary held the book in his hands as he told Molly about her part in the play, while she cried next to a spherical pink balloon-like pokemon called a jigglypuff. He growled, but managed to keep a smile on his face. "Molly, I'm telling you: the jigglypuff has to be Molly. You can't be Molly."

Molly wailed and hugged the pokemon tighter. "I _am_ Molly! I wanna be Molly!" She repeated "I wanna be Molly" over and over until Ash calmly put her hand on her short brown hair.

"Molly," Ash said soothingly, "there's a princess in this story. Do you want to be the normal little girl or do you want to be the princess?"

Molly's four-year-old eyes lit up. "I wanna be a p'incess!" she announced, dropping her arms and releasing a relieved pokemon from her grasp. She got up and started twirling around. "Look! I can dance like a p'incess! See?" She began to laugh at her own attempts to dizzy herself with dancing. The boys glanced at each other and sighed. Finally, they could begin the play.

"Uh," Gary noted, "but we don't have a witch. Where are we going to get one?"

Ash scratched his head for a moment. "Maybe Mom can be the witch."

"Ash!" Delia exclaimed. The boys jumped at her voice and blushed.

"Sorry, Mrs. Ketchum," Gary said. "We didn't mean you were a witch. We were only going to pretend."

"Missus Ketzum is too nice to be a witch," Molly complained while stroking the little curl of fur above the jigglypuff's eyes. "The witch should be someone ugly and mean."

Professor Oak suddenly appeared behind Delia and pinched her on the shoulder, making her yelp and jump about two feet off the ground. She spun around and pushed the professor away. "Don't do that!"

He laughed, his long white lab coat swaying in a brief breeze. "I'm sorry, Delia," he told her playfully. "I just wanted to see how Gary's play was doing." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Ever since Marie died, I've tried to raise the boy as best I can. I don't want him to be unduly influenced by his father. I want to raise Gary into an upstanding member of the pokemon community." He started talking again so that the children could hear him. "Anyway, what's the problem? I thought you kids were going to have a play today."

Gary shook his head. "We can't find a witch to kill like in the book. There aren't any girls around … well, except Molly and she wants to be the princess … and we can't think of a pokemon that would like being attacked."

"I see," the professor noted, stroking his chin. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "I have it! I'll bring over one of my pokemon who knows Substitute. It creates a fake version of itself that you can attack as much as you like and it won't hurt the pokemon one bit. You can dress it up as your witch and blow it to kingdom come, if you like."

"That's perfect!" Ash replied happily. The children continued their discussions about the various events in the play as Professor Oak tugged at Delia's sleeve.

"Delia," he said quietly, "I need to talk to you."

"Of course, Professor." They rounded the corner to the front of the house. "What is it?"

"I've noticed the way you look when you deal with Molly. Delia, you can't take out your frustrations about Spencer on her. She's done nothing to deserve your contempt."

Delia could kick herself. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't escape her teacher's expert gaze. Well, she thought to herself, there was no point in lying now. "Professor, this is the third time this year I've had to babysit that girl because her father is busy going on lecture tours around Johto. I'm considering asking a judge to yank away his visitation rights, as good as it does Ash. Ash doesn't even associate Spencer with fatherhood anymore. It's like Spencer doesn't even exist. Yet, despite his complete lack of wanting to see his son, he wants _me_ to take care of his child, not his own wife, while he avoids his responsibilities. It's not fair!"

Professor Oak sighed and leaned back to peek at the children as they began their play in the back. "Delia, I know you think the girl is spoiled to the core, but she is a princess, of a kind."

"Yeah, the spoiled kind."

"She's the light of Ash, Delia," he replied somberly and almost pleadingly. "And maybe Gary too. All three have parents who have been missing from their lives for some time now and by playing with Molly the two boys can also come to grips with their own grief. Ash has the added benefit of playing with Molly since she's the only reminder of his father he has left. If she were to go away, he'd have nothing but fading memories. You shouldn't take that away from him, Delia. He may not see his relationship with Molly as such, but you can tell that they explore their pain only with each other, not with any of the other kids in Pallet. They will heal themselves by helping her heal from all her frustrations and disappointments. I," he said, pausing to place his hand on her shoulder, "just don't want your hatred of Spencer to shield Ash from a potential source of healing, that's all. Two of my colleagues, Kurt and Dr. Fuji, have recently lost loved ones and have turned themselves into hermits, living alone in their houses and shunning everyone who might be able to help them. I don't want Gary and Ash to end up the same way … or Molly. When you hide from the world, it ends up consuming you."


	23. Email

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 4: ELDERSHIPPING  
Chapter 23: Email

Professor Oak sat in front of his computer, stroking his chin, watching as the little porygon icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen twirled. Although some used the little cyber-pokemon for online battles, Oak preferred it as a sentient utility program for his computer. In any case, he stared at the screen, which was filled with a list of emails he had not yet opened.

One of them surprised him. It was labeled, simply, "Ghosts". The username was _GSGaiaTRainer_:

**Enclosed is an item of interest. Enjoy.**

Hmm, Samuel Oak thought to himself. Unlike his grandson Gary, Giovanni wasted no words when he wasn't talking about business matters. He clicked on the attachment. A picture came up. Professor Oak studied it carefully: it was dimly lit by candlelight somewhere just out of frame and showed Agatha in a tortured pose as purple wisps of smoke swirled around her. He zoomed in on a small card she was holding in her right hand, both hands stretching up toward the heavens in a beseeching manner. It was him. An old picture of him, to be certain, but there was no doubting it -- Agatha was performing some sort of cultish ceremony and he was the target.

He shuddered as he tried to stop the cold shiver from running up his spine. After a few tense seconds, he sighed. He tried to remind himself that Agatha was prone to melodramatic manipulations -- when she found it necessary. To most, especially the goth groupies who hung around her Indigo Elite office, she was a "normal" person -- a bit old-fashioned and somewhat arrogant toward the younger generations, but nothing unusual. It disappointed her most hard-core fan club, naturally.

He deleted the message along with the attachment and shook his head. There was also the possibility that his son had altered the photo to yank his father's chain. He had done it before, even as a child, Giovanni was always seeking to manipulate both parents against each other for his own benefit. He didn't protest when Agatha took him away after the divorce -- indeed, he welcomed the opportunity to get away from one of the few people who saw through his machinations.

The next email was from _DKGardener_. Ah, Delia, he thought with a smile. He welcomed any emails he got from her. She was always so warm and supportive of Ash's journey, which had been going on for about a year now. All he had needed was one more badge from a gym leader and he could enter that year's Indigo League Tournament. The label, however, was strange, coming from her, "Settlement Request":

**It has several months, but I appreciate the progress you're making. He must not know. That is a condition I cannot repeat often enough. I hope you understand. He cannot see … TRA - Zero - One. I have completed my end of the bargain. All information regarding her jungle mission has been emailed to you. All I ask is that you watch after my son. I love him so much. You will find that certain scenarios are in place to help you achieve your goals within the specified time frame. Should further contact be impossible, let it be known that my gratefulness knows no bounds. I thank you again for your support in this matter. You must keep him safe, even from his dearly beloved.**

Professor Oak looked at the date of the email. It was sent well over a week ago, according to the date used within the message. However, it was only actually sent yesterday. It didn't seem like Delia to delay sending a message like this. And what was this? Delia had never asked him to do anything save help teach Ash about safety and responsibility in caring for pokemon. And the "TRA" bothered him as well. If it meant what he thought it did, Delia was heading for trouble. He wasn't aware that she may have been contacting Team Rocket agents at all, much less Giovanni -- Oak and Delia were the only ones except obviously Agatha who knew what Giovanni actually did for a "living" -- and frankly he thought her ill-prepared to go up against her ex-lover.

He caressed the edge of the monitor, his breathing getting shallower. What has she done? She was supposed to be en route to Greenfield to meet with Spencer about finalizing the relinquishment of her alimony. Was that a lie?

He called Spencer on his cell phone.

"This is Professor Hale," Spencer noted dryly. "May I help you?"

"Yes, this is Professor Oak." He found he could not hide the stress in his voice. "Have you heard from Delia?"

There was a long pause. "She said she'd meet me two days ago but she emailed me instead with the legal documents she was requesting me to sign. I'll just be happy when all this is over, Professor. This has been going on too long. I have my own family now." There was another pause. "Is there something the matter?"

"No," Professor Oak replied hastily, "there's nothing of interest today. I was just wondering if she … if she had changed her plans or anything. I was supposed to meet her today for tea and she didn't answer her phone."

"Maybe she's finally getting a life, Professor," Spencer replied icily. "It's about time. Look, I've got to go. Maybe next time we can chat longer." Click.

Serge, Professor Oak's assistant, walked into the library room just as Professor Oak was running toward the front door, grabbing his lab coat from a nearby hanger. Professor Oak glanced quickly at him. "Call me if you hear from Delia, Serge. I mean it! I want to know the second she talks to you. I'm going to her house to see if she needs anything."

"Why am I waiting for her call, then?"

"Don't argue with me!" Oak shouted as he grabbed the doorknob. "She's not answering. But if you hear anything --"

"I'll let you know immediately, Professor." Serge nodded and called out as his mentor was leaving, "Gary's recovering, by the way. I gave him the sedative herb like you said."

"Thank you for all your help, Serge," Professor Oak replied graciously as he ran for his bike.


	24. A Long Time Ago

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 4: ELDERSHIPPING  
Chapter 24: A Long Time Ago

_The stars and the large creamy moon filled the park with a very romantic glow. However, Delia was not here for love. It had been just a year after she broke up with Giovanni, and even though she was seeing Spencer, she wasn't quite yet ready to have a long-term relationship again. She walked toward the lone bench in the center of the park, in front of an old non-functioning fountain, wondering if Spencer would continue to be patient with her. She didn't want to lose him because she knew she needed stability in her life, and Giovanni would never have provided that._

As she reached the worn wooden bench, she spotted a young female clothed in black, her purple hair curling up slightly at the shoulders. The woman held a baby in a beautiful pink embroidered blanket and rocked her gently.

Delia smiled. "She's very lovely."

The woman looked up and tried in vain to hide her worried expression. "Thanks. I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost her. She's the only good thing to come out of my relationship with her … father," she noted, smiling yet wiping tears from her eyes. "She's my little princess."

Delia sighed to try to relieve her discomfort at being out so late -- with an elite Team Rocket member. "You needed something?"

The woman, Miyamoto, nodded. "Do you know anything about Mew?"

Delia sat beside her on the bench, eyes wide, staring out into space. "Why would you think I could know anything about a Mew?"

Miyamoto shrugged. "You like psychic pokemon, don't you? Giovanni …" she stopped, suddenly aware that her friend wouldn't like what was about to come out of her mouth, "… keeps detailed records on all members. God knows why, when his mother runs the organization."

"I'm not a member of Team Rocket, Miya," Delia protested. "Any files you may have seen that said otherwise is simply his wish fulfillment."

Miyamoto laughed and dangled a strand of purple hair to tickle the infant's face playfully. "He still doesn't feel it's complete without you, obviously." She paused and stared at her friend. "Madame Boss wants me to go on a mission -- one that will take at least a few years to prepare -- and I want you to come along. You seem to have an affinity for psychic pokemon and I think you could help me find Mew a lot faster."

"I don't hurt pokemon," Delia retorted in disgust.

"Team Rocket doesn't do that, Delia!" Miyamoto protested. "All I'm going to do is find a Mew and record its voice! It's true pokemon are profitable but it's stupid to just hurt pokemon for no reason …. Look, I need to know if you're in or not."

"Does Giovanni know about this mission?"

"He's not trying to get you into it, if that's what you mean," Miyamoto sighed. "Delia, he would kill me if he knew I would be taking you on a dangerous … well, a not-very-comfortable mission in some jungle somewhere. Giovanni never intended on letting you go on adventures or missions -- you're too precious to him to lose to some random crazed pokemon in the middle of nowhere."

"I can't be a part of it, Miya," Delia sighed, shaking her head.

"Officially or not at all?" Miyamoto's eyes pleaded with her friend. "Delia, you told a lot of us that you craved adventure, that all you could think about was getting away from your parents -- I need that fire from you now. I don't think I'll make it without your help."

Delia's lip quivered. "He … he killed my pokemon, Miya. The one he gave me -- as a present -- he killed my Ralts. I couldn't think it at the time, but I realize now he betrayed me just to get a reaction."

Miyamoto placed a hand on Delia's lap. "Delia, I'm sorry," she said in a warm smile. "That's believable, but it's all the more reason to go. If Madame Boss can't get rich off this mission then Giovanni will plan a coup. Everyone knows what a jerk he is. He'll go somewhere none of us want to be. You have to let me prevent that -- the future of Team Rocket and the world is at stake."

Delia nodded once. "You're right."

Delia strained as an immense pressure held her against the cliff face. She was on the Johto-Kanto border, headed for the Indigo Plateau. She had assumed that going there would make her last just a little longer against Giovanni's wrath, especially when he found out what she had done.

She was wrong.

She realized with perfect terror that even the Elite Four would not stop Giovanni's wrath.

And it was upon her now.

What made her heart race faster was how impeccably cold it was, so impersonal. It had been sent to execute her for crossing its master.

She had told it that it didn't want to do this, that it couldn't continue to be the puppet for Team Rocket. Without emotion, it had thrown her against the cliff face, threatening to crush her body against the rock, and announced that superiority trumps morality. That was why she tried to tell it that it wasn't always that way with Team Rocket, that Giovanni was a master manipulator and hater of all things "inferior" to him. She asked it to read her mind, to see how Team Rocket used to be.

It wasn't impressed by the memory, or so it seemed to her at least.

_Things change_, it noted icily.

Oh Professor, Delia thought to herself, where are you when I need you? As she grunted in pain, she suddenly gasped. If he were to rescue her …

_I would kill him as well,_ the pokemon assassin coldly acknowledged.


	25. If I Should Die Before You Wake

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 4: ELDERSHIPPING  
Chapter 25: If I Should Die Before You Wake…

_Faced with such powerful dark energy, Sam climbed as hard as he could, his hands aching as shockwaves coursed through his body periodically. Someone he cared deeply about was about to lose the gift of life, and he knew that he must stop it, no matter what. So, he kept trying._

Professor Oak clutched the young woman as she lay on the ground, her eyes rolling up to the back of her head, her body trembling. He was trembling too -- he had never seen anything like this, save what the Iron Masked Marauder did to Celebii what seemed like decades ago, even though it technically hadn't happened yet, that he knew for sure. He couldn't remember exactly what that green pokemon was that Ash had, but he knew that at the moment that particular pokemon wasn't part of his team.

He slipped off his lab coat and wrapped her in it to help prevent shock from overcoming her, then got up and stood in front of her as the feline-humanoid pale lavender pokemon reached back, forming a black shadow ball in its paws to hurl at them.

It smirked. _A human of your reputation should know you cannot physically protect her from my attacks,_ it boasted, its arrogance the only emotion it had shown, if any. Professor Oak felt a tinge of pain as the psychic pokemon ran through his memories. _Your grandchild, your lover -- I will hurt them both._

Professor Oak smirked, which temporarily caused a brief flash of confusion on the psychic pokemon's face. "You don't mention my son at all. Haven't you questioned your master's …"

_I HAVE no master!_ it interrupted angrily, the shadow ball disappearing as it tried to make a fist with the three short toes on its paw. Professor Oak could see that the strange armor that shielded the pokemon quivered slightly in response to the pokemon's growing fury.

Professor Oak gulped and smiled. He might die, but this pokemon had not thought everything through. "To my son, he is master of us all -- human and pokemon alike. If he's willing to assassinate his father and his former lover, what will he do with you when you too become obsolete or irritating to his purposes?"

The creature laughed. _I have nothing to fear from him._

"But the rest of us do," Professor Oak admitted. "You help him terrorize all of us, all so he can make himself look superior than what he is."

_He helped me control my powers,_ the creature said after a pause. _Control is the ultimate sign of superiority._

Oak chuckled. "Quoted verbatim from my son himself. He finds purpose only in controlling others." Professor Oak was then thrown back a couple of feet, tripping over Delia's body, and landed with a hard thump on the ground. He rubbed his back, but it shot sparks of pain up and down his spine. The damage would take years to heal.

_No one controls me,_ the creature said with an almost supernatural, icy calm.

Professor Oak remembered trying to get Celebii to remember the good times he had had with his younger self and Ash so that he would break free of Team Rocket's dark influence and stop destroying the forest. Could the same strategy work on this being?

"Perhaps the lack of someone controls you, then," Professor Oak remarked through gritted teeth as he tried to stand despite the agonizing pain. "I'm not a fool: there's only one man I know of who could have created you, and I know what that man went through. You look so different from the source material that other genetic information had to be used. My son believes himself to be the ultimate in power, so naturally he'd bestow upon you his … superiority, so to speak. I guess that makes me your father in part as well…."

It shuddered slightly. _I should kill you now for insulting me._

Professor Oak glared at his attacker. "There would only be one reason for Dr. Fuji to create you -- he wanted to perfect resurrection through cloning. And there's only one way to ensure that you fit his master plan -- you haven't killed me yet because you know something deep in that heart of yours -- that little speck of light that says …"

_Life is wonderful,_ it said unbidden as it now looked at the ground below.

"Life is worth saving," Oak continued, softening his voice. "He wanted his daughter back and, knowing him, he had a backup plan in case he couldn't get her essence to return to life. I suspect she lives on in you."

The pokemon groped its face in agony, as if it were trying to come to grips with a truth it could not see. The lack of someone _was_ controlling him -- in fact, it threatened to tear him apart. Finally, its telepathic voice roared and a psychic wave knocked Professor Oak back to the ground. Its throat quivered, its paws shook -- and suddenly it glared at Oak and Delia just as she was beginning to recuperate from the psychic shock. _Do you care for each other?_ it screamed. _Would you agree to anything to protect each other? I am not a true part of this world -- I will never have what you take for granted -- so now, neither will you!_

A gigantic wave of blue energy rocketed toward them, knocking them both unconscious. Even as they both felt themselves slip away from each other, their bodies sliding further and further apart as a white light overtook them…


	26. Mewtwo's Epilogue

**To Care for Him**  
ACT 4: ELDERSHIPPING  
Chapter 26: Mewtwo's Epilogue

He stroked the rough sackcloth robe in his paws. It had been hanging on a line outside a house with a windmill with a couple of others, flowing in the breeze. He used his powers to teleport the robe to himself as he sat on a tree branch high above the edge of the field where he knew resided a human who helped him discover what had been missing in his life.

As he threw it around him and prepared to teleport away, he noticed laughter coming from the house a couple of hundred yards away. The brown-headed woman was eating a snack next to the older man, laughing as he recited poetry. He decided to stay to see how they would act towards one another, feeling a pit of anger in his stomach as he realized they must be recovering from his mind wipe.

The woman told the man what a pretty day it was and that she hoped her son would be home soon after he had completed the Johto League. The old man nodded and told her her son would surely return home -- since the boy couldn't resist the woman's cooking. They both smiled and blushed.

"Professor Oak, don't you ever wonder if life was always supposed to be this way? I mean, what if we could all be doing something else?" the woman pondered out loud.

The old man coughed. "Delia … I …."

The woman sighed as she brushed a strand of brown hair from her face and soaked in the sun. She smiled. "I'm glad we're friends, aren't you?"

He returned the smile, and the spying pokemon could barely perceive the relief. "Yes, I am, Delia. I'm very glad indeed."


End file.
